Review: twitter for dummies

A few weeks ago I was given a copy of the newly published twitter for dummies by Wiley publishing. You know something has gone mainstream when it gets its own dummies book!

Like most books in the series, it was a quick read (about one hour to scan 250 pages) filled with lots of good references for the noob looking to better understand what twitter is and how they should be using it. @pistachio, @gruen, and @geechee_girl are the co-authors and did a great job of balancing information and insights for the beginner and for the non-beginner. They also engaged the twitter community at large by setting up a bright idea account at http://tfd.brightidea.com to encourage input and feedback from the twitterverse.

Although some information was repeated throughout the book perhaps a few too many times (like references to what is search.twitter.com), the book is structured and paced really well.

One of the other things referenced a few times were references to Google indexing your tweets. Although typing in your name + twitter in the search tool is a great way to find out whether or not people are on twitter, there is no easy way to find tweets on google (that I could figure out). Apparently google allows you to use advanced search terms to make it possible to see who else is talking about you and your tweets in addition to the tweets themselves.  Call me a dummie, but I couldn’t figure that one out.

There is also a section within the book on companies using twitter as most of chapter 6 is dedicated to not only telling you about how companies such as Dell, Comcast, and Zappos are using Twitter, but also list several other industries and categories.

Although written for the beginner, even experienced twitterotti will find a nugget or two that they didn’t know of before. For example, through this book I was also introduced to BLVDstatus – a really neat domain listening tool that will track references, conversations, and links to and from your domain name. The tool will allow you track which tweets result in traffic to your website. It’s like a google alert – but more useful.

Like most things in print these days, the minute something is printed it’s already outdated. Trends, features, and even the twitter homepage interface has changed since this was published only a few weeks ago.

Having said that, the book should have a good shelf life for those looking for an introduction to twitter.

With hundreds, if not thousands of tools, applications, and services dedicated to twitter through their API, it’s impossible to mention all the best ones in the book. Having said that, it was a bit of a miss not to include twitdom.com which is a pretty good directory of all things twitter.

For those who want the latest twitter insights, the authors have kept their bright idea site alive and encourage their readers to check in to see what the twitter for dummies community is up to. They even setup a URL friendly redirect at http://www.twitterfordummies.org.