Tweet Better: 9 Unconventional (and Slightly Badass) Ways to use Twitter

December 4th, 2007 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (11) |

I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon pretty early on, but only recently have I begun to use the service regularly. As it turns out, Twitter can be used for more than simply tracking friends’ status updates and pursuing other various forms of cyber-stalking. There are many other great uses for Twitter, so I would like to present you a personal guide - Tweet Better: 9 Unconventional (and Slightly Badass) Ways to use Twitter. Oh, and if you haven’t yet, sign up for Twitter and follow me.

MyMileMarker is a fantastic website that tracks your vehicle’s mileage and fuel economy and provides reports and projections based on the data you enter. You’re not required to use Twitter to utilize the service, but it’s way more badass if you do. Just add mymm to your fiends list and send it a direct message with pertinent info every time you fill up, following this format: “d mymm [total miles on odometer] [# of gallons] [price]” For example, I recently sent a message that reads “d mymm 2985 6.959 2.77″ and got a reply with my mileage and MPG on the previous tank.

Twittercal connects your Google Calendar and Twitter, enabling you to add events to your calendar using Twitter. All you have to do is authorize Twittercal to access your Google Calendar, add gcal to your friends list, and send a direct message with the pertinent info (”d gcal metting with paul tomorrow at 7pm”) whenever you need to add an event.

Timer is a bot that allows you to set an alarm for things you need to remember. Just add Timer to your friends list and send it a direct message in the following format: “d timer [# of minutes until reminder] [your message]”. At the time you specified, Timer will tweet you back with your alarm message. Because the message travels through the Twitter servers and SMS if you have it enabled, the alarms can be off a minute or two, so it’s best not to rely on it for really important things (e.g., “d timer 16 remove pizza from oven”).

MoniTwitter (Monitor + Twitter) is no longer being actively developed, but the service is still active. After you sign up, MoniTwitter pings your website and sends you a message on Twitter if your website is unreachable, returns an error code, or takes too long to load. Periodically they’ll send you a separate message with info on how long your website takes to load.

Add forecast to your friends list and send it a direct message in the following format: “d forecast [zip or city, state abbrev]”. For example, “d forecast decorah, ia” or “d forecast 50265″. Forecast will direct message you back with the local weather forecast.

TwitThis adds a button to your blog posts allowing people to easily post a link to your website on their Twitter feed. They have a WordPress plugin that automatically adds the TwitThis button to every post on your blog. Additionally, TwitterFeed automatically adds a link to your latest blog post in your Twitter feed using your site’s RSS feed. A little shameless self-promotion never hurt anybody.

“Forgive me, for I have sinned in under 140 characters…” (possible adult content) Confess 2.0 lets you post mini-confessions anonymously which show up in confession’s Twitter feed, where you can read the confessions of everyone else. Think of it as a Twitter-ized PostSecret.

There are a bunch of news organizations using Twitter to distribute their content, including CNN, BBC, and the New York Times. Twitter was used to cover the California fires earlier this year, and I’m currently following the writer’s strike via Twitter.

Friending ESVDaily sends a Bible verse to your Twitter feed once a day. It’s the English Standard Version translation. I didn’t bother looking up any others, so I’m not sure if they’re on Twitter.

There you have it. Now, there are many more uses for Twitter than those I have listed (including tracking the progress of a paper you’re writing), but these are the few I’ve found to be most useful and interesting. What did I leave off the list? What are your favorite unconventional (and slightly badass) ways to use Twitter?

Maybe we can convince Adam Walker Cleaveland, who wonders what the point of Twittering is, to see the light.