michael favia

The basic premise of twitter is simple. You update what you are doing and others "follow" you and decide how they want your stream of updates delivered. You may want to have close friends updates sent to your phone via text messages, and have other peoples updates only display on your twitter web page so you can check in ocassionally but not be bothered all the time. The point is, its up to you and can be changed anytime you like from your phone or on the web.

Twitter is a great way to stay connected to the people you now in near real time. You can access and update twitter via the internet, txt messages, or instant messenger. By updating twitter with what you are doing or planning on doing, your friends can easily see and join you. Instead of managing large email lists or groups for text messaging a lot of people you just update yourself and let your friends decide if they want to join.

Below is a cheat sheet of twitter commands that can be sent via txt message or instant message. All of these things can also be done online using the web interface if youd rather. To use the commands below just replace USERNAME/TELEPHONE#/MESSAGE with the appropriate values for what you are trying to do. Twitters phone number is 40404.  All msgs for twitter need to be sent and will be received from this number so add it to your contacts.

• Invite a friendd to join: invite TELEPHONE#
• Follow someonewith your device (txt/im): follow USERNAME or on USERNAME
• Stop following someone on your device (txt/im): leave USERNAME or off USERNAME
• Get last status message of someone: get USERNAME
• Turn off device (txt/im) updates with: off, sleep, or quit
• Turn on device (txt/im) updates with: on, or wake
• Send a direct and private message to someone with: d USERNAME MESSAGE
• Reply to someones last twitter with: @USERNAME MESSAGE

FYI, When you add a follow on someone via your cellphone you automatically turn on device updates, but if you add them with the web interface you have to enable device updates (either with on USERNAME or through the web interface) if you want to be txted or instant messaged when they update their status.

If your concerned about being bothered by a bunch of twitters consider turning device updates off for all of the poeple you follow and just asking twitter what they people you are interested in are up to with : get USERNAME