I’ve had a Twitter account for awhile now, though I don’t use it consistently. I enjoy using Twitter to post quips, to communicate during large events, and to enter contests. It also has served me well as a platform for self-promotion, though I try to keep that to a minimum.
RETWEET ASSIGNMENT
The retweet assignment was interesting. I had retweeted before using the one-click button, but had never used the RT function. It was confusing at first, because I wasn’t sure whether or not to put a space between RT and the @handle. Like with many things technological this just meant some trial and error.
LINKS
If you’d like to follow me, click here: @tu_pint and then click follow!
My experience with this assignment was rather difficult. It probably wouldn’t be as bad if Twitter was a part of my daily routine. I created my Twitter account about a year ago because of another class required for all PR majors at Texas State University. I like the concept of Twitter but with my busy schedule I just don’t have the time to Tweet all the time. This really applies to all social media, I am not big on Facebook and I don’t even have an Instagram. Prior to this assignment I can’t really remember Twitting about something that interested me. With that being said, I do tweet about my #SprintProblems all the time, because let’s be real, Sprint is awful.
To even complete this assignment, I needed to call a friend over to walk me through this. I’m sitting here just trying to figure out what a retweet with the “RT” and added commentary even means when I get a Twitter notification on my phone. When I open the Twitter app I see that she had tweeted about me. I couldn’t help but laugh. She is sitting here trying to explain how to use Twitter via my computer, instead of the app like I normally do, and simultaneously tweeting about my struggle.
Clearly….technology is not my thing and it never will be.
I am a senior here at Texas State and I want to go into Crisis Management once I’ve graduated. I have my eye set up on Dallas since I know there are a few major big organizations up there. I hope to get out of this class the ability to make web pages which will be another check mark on my skills/abilities on my resume. In my spare time I like to hunt, fish, play video games, am a founding father of Theta Chi Fraternity here on campus, and like to play golf on the weekends.
I’m not an avid tweeter, but I’m opening up to it for this class. I saw an article online about the latest Twitter handle to take Austin by “winter storm” — @AISDclosures is really the only thing parents are finding funny about the recent “snow days” and delayed opening fails.
For the exercise, I used the app on my iPhone, and I both re-tweeted using the easy route as well as copying the tweet and pasting with my own comments. It made me appreciate the short and sweet tweets that actually leave you room to comment. Most of the tweets in my feed were too long for me to add anything to the end of.
So that was a cool discovery — the shorter the tweet, the better engagement you’ll get from others that add on to it.
Also, I received some spam tweets shortly after I RT’d @TorchyTaco and @LearnVest. I did receive a follow from two people — I’m not sure if one of them is a robot.
I have used Twitter many times before this class but had taken a bit of a hiatus so it is nice to get back into it. I really like the immediacy of news and updates on Twitter and the ability to customize your feed based on who you are following and what the site decides for you to see. I like using Twitter to stay current on what concerts and events are going on around Austin, promoting my music, and networking with likeminded people.
I have used the Twitter app on my phone in the past when I was in Fundamentals of Digital and Online Media with Jon Zmikly, but did not use it for this exercise. I recognize the benefits of being connected at all times, but sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by the constant Facebook and Twitter updates on my phone so I keep it all on my computer (which I’m on several hours a day anyways).
I’m an avid retweeter. I enjoy a good tweet & like to share it with my friends. I’m not as clever as I’d like to think, so if I find a tweet I find clever I’ll share it.
I’ve used both the basic retweet feature and the quote tweet feature before. I use the twitter app on my phone almost every day. I’m a bit of a tweet-a-holic.
My latest retweet was this:
And this was my last quote tweet:
Here’s a picture of my current bio:
And here’s the new One Direction music video that came out today that I posted on twitter. Yes, I’m a massive One Direction fan. It’s embarrassing.
I have had a Twitter for almost three years, so you would think I would know how to retweet by now but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Obviously there is the easy way, to just hit the “Retweet” button, but I couldn’t figure out how to copy a post, how to get it to show up correctly, I wasn’t sure where to put my comment or exactly how and where to put the RT. I finally looked up Different Ways to Retweet Someone to make sure I was doing it correctly, and it wasn’t as difficult as I was trying to make it. I also had a little trouble finding something I wanted to tweet about. I guess that means I need to follow some more people, or just look through old post of the people I started following last week. Anyway, I eventually found two articles that I thought were worthy of a retweet.
Hopefully I did my retweets correctly
My first retweet I did by just pushing the “Retweet” button. That was definitely easier than trying to figure out how to retweet by copying the post. I chose to retweet @HRC because it’s close to my heart and I think everyone should know that people can still get fired for who they choose to love (this is 2014, COME ON!).
My second retweet was the one I had the most trouble with. I wanted to find something that was relevant to #webpub so I thought this post from @UberFacts was perfect. One out of five divorces is linked to Facebook, which is a great example of how Facebook is effecting our society.
Hopefully, with more practice I will be using and enjoying Twitter by the end of this semester!
Ethan Zuckerman’s 6-minute History of the Internet not only sets the record straight as to who the “Father of the Internet is” (not Al Gore), it puts blogging, social media, and wikis into historical context and explains how these were all natural progressions of the advent of the Internet.
In the Nerds 2.0.1 Timeline, I learned more about the development of the internet prior to it becoming commercially available. My family signed up for AOL in 1995, and I remember a time when websites were limited. You had to know the exact address in order to find them or else rely on the “shortcuts” AOL provided you in its interface. The sound of the dial-up will always bring back memories. 🙂
The Internet: A Decade Later helped me realize the impact the internet has had on pop culture. For example, in 2002, the most-searched items were topics that originated offline, such as Spiderman, Shakira, and the Olympics. By 2012, we see online-originated topics becoming more prevalent, such as Rebecca Black, Google+, and Pinterest. Content created online is now popping up offline in the news, entertainment shows like Tosh.0, and in other aspects of pop culture.
The First Website: I never before thought of the web as a cooperative. The “How can I help?” link made that sink in. It says,
There are lots of ways you can help if you are interested in seeing the web grow and be even more useful… The web needs raw data…
In The Evolution of the Web, I was very interested to learn the evolution of the cookie, as well as all the different types of cookies that are now available. I am somewhat familiar with them, having worked at a financial institution and in the marketing department, but I had no idea that there were so many different types.
How Search Engines Work: I had no idea that some search engines only index the page title. That explains why some of our SEO advice at work tells us to drop a bunch of keywords in the page title. I’ve always found that tacky and annoying, but now I see the importance.
From: How Search Engines Work via outofotheblue.net
Get More Out of Google: Holy cow! There are SO MANY different ways to search Google. I had no idea it had its own language, similar to code, that can help you produce the results you want much faster than typing in keywords and combing through articles.
On Twitter, I started following WOCCU, the World Council of Credit Unions, because they sponsored and coordinated the internship I recently participated in. They serve as a connector between all the different credit unions around the world — many of which are “doing it better” than the CUs in the United States.
I also started following the CU Water Cooler because they post content, articles, and event information relevant to CU employees and fans of cooperatives.
Lastly, I chose Filene Research because they post content relevant to consumer finance in general. While I personally align with the cooperative/ credit union movement in the US, Filene posts information and consumer research that will impact both banks and cooperatives.
I’m Taylor, and I’m a senior advertising major here at Texas State University. I just got back from a two-week internship all over southern Brazil that focused on understanding the role that the Brazilian credit union system SICREDI plays in the cooperatives all over southern Brazil. It was life-changing, to say the very least, and I apologize in advance if I talk about it too much.
I am currently working full-time as a Marketing Specialist at Amplify Credit Union in north Austin, which keeps me very busy. In my free time, I crochet and design clothing and accessories. This year, my goal is to brand myself as a designer and have a website that showcases my work.
I have some experience with web developing, but I know this class is going to help fill in some of the gaps in my understanding of how everything fits together. I could really use some help in creating secure forms, and if we can learn how to have them feed into databases, that would be even more super! I am also very interested in data visualization.
My Twitter handle is @taytillaria but I admittedly don’t use it very often. I will do my best to use it for class.
My name is Trevor Smith. I am a 23 year-old Mass Communication student. I’m trying to learn web design in order to manage my own portfolio site, as well as, to find work making other people’s sites.
In my spare time I make films with my buddies. I also do audio production. In the coming years, I would like to do some voice-over work for animation. I’m a big fan of cartoons! I grew up on Looney Tunes, VHS tapes of old Disney cartoons, and The Simpsons. My favorite five animated shows are: Futurama, The Simpsons, Mission Hill, King of the Hill, Dragonball.
I am on twitter, though I don’t use it too consistently. My handle is @tu_pint.
