Follow Friday is a group meme on Twitter where everybody suggests new people to follow. It’s a great way of discovering new people on Twitter – you might even make some great new friends.

“What he/she says” is stolen from their twitter bios, btw.. so if I call you boring it’s cos you haven’t bothered writing one!

@paulpuddifoot (Paul Puddifoot)
What he says: Nothing. Boorrrring.
What I say: “Nice guy, friendly! Currently obsessed with Sims 3 – I’m very jealous as I haven’t got it yet!”

@AlrightTit (Lisa Lynch)
What she says: “Write, editor, author-in-training. Blogging through The Bullshit at www.alrighttit.com.”
What I say: “Brilliantly honest and funny – she’s currently blogging her way through the crap that is breast cancer, which is well worth a read.”
Her website: Alright Tit

@serenium (Chad Round)
What he says: “22. M. Shy. Slightly geeky. Toast fiend.”
What I say: “Nice bloke! He’s already summed it up nicely there :-)”
His website: Balance Point

@LaChatNoir (Tanya Burley)
What she says: “Insomniac actor/writer with cyber addiction.”
What I say: “Fabulous lady, very fun to chat to :-)”
Her website: La Chat Noir’s Ramblings

@takemeback (Christine G.)
What she says: “It doesn’t really matter what clothes I wear or how I fare of if my hair is brown”
What I say: “She’s fantastically fun, and there is a blooming romance going on right now, definitely worth following for the fun of that!”

@O2 (O2 in the UK)
What he says: “Hello, welcome to the Twitter channel of O2 in the UK. Let’s talk!”
What I say: “I know this is strange to include in follow friday, but this guy is quite funny, and very helpful if you are an iPhone user in the UK. Squeeed his way through the keynote with the rest of us!”

© Zoe for Zoe Corkhill, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: #followfriday, twitter

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As you possibly know, I am a big twitter lover. The only problem is that because it is blocked at work I don’t always remember to check out the people who are following me when I get the emails.. so please comment here with your usernames so I can follow you!

If you don’t want to comment with them, feel free to email me instead

Oh, and my username is zoecorkhill, as it is pretty much everywhere else on the web. I love having a unique name, especially after the anonymity of my childhood – my maiden name being Smith!

© Zoe for Zoe Corkhill, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: twitter

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Follow Friday is a group meme on Twitter where everybody suggests new people to follow. It’s a great way of discovering new people on Twitter – you might even make some great new friends.

“What he/she says” is stolen from their twitter bios, btw.. so if I call you boring it’s cos you haven’t bothered writing one! There are 14 suggestions here – 1 for every 10 characters!

@jamescorkhill
What he says: “Recently and happily married, I like all things geeky, especially Mac products and work as a PHP web developer.”
What I say: “My lovely husband! Promises to tweet more if he has more followers – what he does say is interesting most the time, if a little geeky at time!”

@hayles
What she says: “A twenty-something blonde who finds herself working in IT in Bristol for some strange reason. Also likes shoes.”
What I say: “Hayley is a friend of James’s from Uni, and we’ve bonded over our respective caffiene addiction and girl geekiness. Lovely girl, great tweets :-).”

@Sn1per
What he says: “Geek, photographer, Mac fan, outdoorsman, digital strategist, Libertarian and idiot. Not necessarily in that order.”
What I say: “He locked himself in his own porch for about 2 hours. That kind of amusement alone is worth following him for! Seriously though, he’s a great guy”

@plannersusanna
What she says: “I’m a wedding/events Planner and all-around good soul, with a little bit of naughty thrown in for good measure :o)”
What I say: “@Sn1per’s wife & all round trouble maker! I love her tweets, they’re so mischievous sometimes!”

@takara_kat
What she says: Nothing. How boring.
What I say: “A mobile platform (inc. iPhone) game developer, really nice girl to talk to – a good friend of mine. A little bit silly at times :P!”

@chexee
What she says: “Web / Design / New Media / The Starship Heart of Gold”
What I say: “Great wordpress theme developer who I’ve known since our old Livejournal days. Interesting & often useful tweets :)”

@trialia
What she says: “Eclectic, eccentric, irrepressible and insane.”
What I say: “She sums it up in those 4 words quite well! She’s a big fangirl, I’ve known her since I was tiny.”

@stef
What he says: “Creative entrepreneur and maker of social network toolbox for dads Odadeo.com – Webby winner, Clore Fellow, ideas guy, jack of all trades but master of none!”
What I say: “Nice guy, good tweets.”

@emilyquinton
What she says: “Wedding and Fine Art Photographer, mum to two and PhD student. Busy and happy!”
What I say: “GORGEOUS photos (I’m so jealous!) – @stef’s wife. A happy soul :).”

@sophamie
What she says: Nothing. BORING!
What I say: “My best friend from my high school days. Doesn’t tweet much but maybe more followers would encourage her! Welcome her to the party!”

@mooseius
What she says: “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.”
What I say: “Another school friend who I’ve reconnected with on the internet since twitter was invented! Lovely girl, very funny tweets at times!”

@msonline_uk
What he says: “Gadget lover, Mac user, iPhone user and Girls Aloud fan”
What I say: “Genuinely nice guy, very into gadgets. I think he’s the gadget show’s biggest fan!

@homily
What she says: “Woof!”
What I say: “Yep, this is my dog. She’s very web 2.0. Lots of cute/funny photos and random updates :P. She’s ADORABLE, even on twitter.”

@mfhorne (there has to be one celebrity on the list, and everyone already follows @stephenfry!)
What he says: “small actor”
What I say: “He’s hilarious – if you want some humour in your twitterfeed, follow Mat Horne! “

© Zoe for Zoe Corkhill, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: #followfriday, twitter

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What you have to understand about Twitter is that it’s not really just a series of meaningless updates. The thing I hear most often is “why would I care what so-and-so had for breakfast anyway?” – the funny thing is about this is you then get the very same people having conversations about diets, recipes, all time favourite breakfast cereals.. when they are talking about breakfast in person. The fact that my coworkers spend at least 5 minutes a day discussing what they had for dinner the night before proves that you do care about what your friends are eating! Twitter is a conversation too, you just have to join in.

If your friend has coco pops for breakfast then give them props for admitting to love a childish breakfast cereal, and admit you love it to! If they send a tweet saying that they’re having muesli then give them your opinion on the foul stuff, and commend them for being healthy. And that’s just breakfast! Conversations I’ve had on Twitter in the last few weeks include: my favourite mac/iPhone software, pets, cross stitch, Counting Crows (I actually had a mini convo with the lead singer of my fav band!), my wedding, men’s flaws, and my favourite tv shows!

Twitter is a place where you can ask for help, and you’ll get half a dozen answers; sometimes even from complete strangers just looking at the public timeline. You can help out your friends with their questions – I even helped Mat Horne with an iTunes question, go me! You can share funny links, interesting links, helpful links… you get the picture – it’s a great way to find fantastic gems on the web!

And all this is before you even add in the hundreds of twitter apps that are out there. There is just so much you can do with twitter, and so many applications that work with twitter.. You can share great photos, capturing brilliant moments & sharing them with your friends instantly. You can be a DJ, update your friends when you post a blog entry, send greetings cards, organise events..  and of course you can use it as a notebook – that’s my personal favourite, along with TwitPic ;-).

The point I’m trying to make is that Twitter is so much more than what you had for breakfast. It’s hard to explain why you should come and join in; only that you should. Twitter is a community, a place to discover new friends, a place to find out what’s new & hot on the web scene – and just an all round great place to be. If after you’ve read all this[2. Seriously, well done if you have read all this!] you’re still a bit sceptical, watch this video from Common Craft:

Coming next, my #followfriday suggestions, in a blog post.

© Zoe for Zoe Corkhill, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: geekiness, iphone, recommendations, twitnote, twitter

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Every user has a public page¹ with an RSS feed built in – you can choose which notes you want making public, and you can control whether you want all the notes you send to us to be public by default. To use Twitnote, all you have to do to send us a note is to mention or direct message @twnote. You can add a new note right from Twitnote interface as well.

Another neat feature of Twitnote is that we have built in a SMS feature – just text a UK mobile number with the text “twnote blah blah blah” and that’s another note added :-). Useful for when you don’t want to boot up a twitter app to send a note to yourself.

Anyway, please check out Twitnote & see for yourself whether it’s any good or not – please let me know what you think!

1. Like Twitter, this can be found at http://twitnote.co.uk/username. My public page is here.

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Post tags: geekiness, twitnote, twitter

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As the kind of person who buys every bit of charity mechandise & reserves the entire evening to watching, everytime Comic Relief or Children in Need events roll around, this kind of event appeals to me a lot. It’s a wonderful combination of two things I love – an evening meeting new people and having a great time.. and getting an important message out & helping a brilliant charity.

Twestivals are happening all over the world tonight in an effort by twitter users to raise money & awareness for charity:water.

One in Six people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. In a country where you can just turn on the tap and get a glass full, it’s hard to realise the enormity of the problem. 1.1 billion people can’t just turn on a tap. To find out more please read charity:water’s why water? page.

If that isn’t enough reason to come, read these! It is going to be a great night.

Tickets are still available for @brumtwestival – these will be available on the door tonight, so if you are a fellow twitter user, why not come along & join us?

© Zoe for Zoe Corkhill, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: twitter

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However, I don’t think it is necessary to over do it. For instance – I don’t think it is necessary to import all your tweets and post them as blog posts in digest form. I figure if someone who reads my blogs want to read my tweets, they’ll just head over to twitter and follow me there. All I needed along those lines was a sidebar widget so that my recent tweets were displayed, and it would be easy for someone to find me on twitter via my blog.

So, the 5 (simple yet functional) plugins I have installed are as follows:

• Twitpress by Thomas Purnell – this handy plugin allows you to automatically announce your blog posts via your twitter account – I find this much more acceptable than posting all your tweets as blog posts. You’re letting your friends & followers let you know you’ve updated, and they can then go ahead and check their feedreaders or visit your blog to read.
• MyTwitter by Erundur Anwamehtar – this plugin caches your tweets and displays them in your sidebar. This has the advantage of it not being blocked by filters which block the twitter site, such as my own work! It is very easily customisable, and allows you to manipulate the code used to display your tweets – which allowed me to add a ‘follow me’ button to the end of the widget – very handy! By the way, the beautiful button is by Siah Design, who has a whole selection of equally gorgeous ones!
• Twittar by Ricardo Sousa, Smashing Magazine – this one combines the brilliance of gravatar (which, lets face it, not everyone uses), with twitter avatars. Based on the email address, it will either pull the commenter’s twitter avatar or gravatar. Failing that, you can specify an icon to be used when neither exist. Again, this is customisable and easy to use.
• Automagic Twitter Profile URI by Benjamin Wittorf – This one is similar to the Twittar plugin, it looks up the commenter’s email address & checks if it is registered with twitter, then outputs a link to the user’s profile. Customisable of course, so you can specify exactly what is outputted (for example I have a twitterrific bird appear when a twitter user comments on my posts).
• WordPress @username by Lantrix – Having this installed is just proof of my laziness whenever I type @zoecorkhill or similar in posts, it will automatically link to that user’s profile. This is really just to save me bothering to manually put in a link every time!

Each of these plugins has something in common: they each do just perform one function, but they do this very well. When you put them all together you have a seamless, but understated, integration between twitter & wordpress.

© Zoe for Zoe Corkhill, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: recommendations, twitter, wordpress

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