If you’re into Information Security, and you use Twitter, you probably want to be following @securitytwits.

It’s a group of security professionals and enthusiasts that use Twitter to share ideas. The group is herded by Zach Lanier (@quine), and the list of members can be found here online.

For a decent introduction to the ideas behind the group, here’s a short podcast of Bill Brenner (@billbrenner70) interviewing Zach on the topic of Twitter itself as well as the Security Twits list.

[ Bill Brenner / Zach Lanier | csopodcasts ]

So everyone knows by now that Twitter is getting big. Really big. One of the most important things to figure out with Twitter, both for beginners and experts alike, is how to find interesting people that share your interests.

The challenge is that you don’t want to just follow people indiscriminately because it gets noisy in a hurry, but at the same time you want to expose yourself to new inputs.

Here’s a simple technique that will help immensely:

Using Twitter Search, perform a number of queries for specialized terms relating to your topics of interest, and follow people that are discussing these things intelligently.

Examples

So let’s say you’re like me and are in the Information Security field. Try some queries for:

• “pci qsa”
• “risk controls”
• “static analysis”

The results show a good amount of promise. In fact, I ended up finding @risktical in this test query, and he’s someone I follow already due to our similar interests. That’s a win for the technique.

Or perhaps you’re into Graphics and Design:

• “xhtml logo”
• “typography best”
• “css design”

In both cases the queries returned people in the midst of conversation on the very topics that we enjoy, and sampling this interaction is an excellent way to evaluate someone’s value as a follow.

So in other words, don’t search for value-add people directly. Instead, sneak up from the side by finding those engaged in the types of conversations that you’d like to be part of, and follow the people that are participating. ::

Related

[ When to Blog vs. Tweet | dmiessler.com ]
[ Why Twitter Works | dmiessler.com ]

I really hope Twitter’s pushing of OAuth is successful. ::

Twitter Search continues to impress me. It’s quickly becoming one of the best things about the service.

I woke up this morning and noticed that my Feedburner/Google subscriber count had plummeted from around 900 to around 400–a drop of 500. Content creators don’t like that because it makes you start wondering what you did wrong.

Was it that picture I posted?
Have I been too heavy on religion lately?
Crap, I hope I didn’t seriously offend someone…

…etc.

So I fire up Quicksilver and run a Twitter Search (screencast forthcoming) on the word “feedburner”. Instantly I get back hundreds of people asking the same exact questions, which confirms my theory that there’s been a glitch with the subscriber numbers at Google.

This is power. No, this is serious power. Never have we been able to so easily figure out if the “world” (by sampling) is having the same problem you are, or what “people” are talking about.

Sure, we’ve had the mailing lists for various products and communities, and IRC channels are good for those types of queries, but never has it been this mainstream (and thus, useful). Exciting stuff. ::

I’m trying to come up with a simple decision tree, or flowchart, for when something should be tweeted vs. when it should get the respect of a full blog entry. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Move through the blogging rules below and see if you get a match. If you don’t, move on to the Twitter rules. Note: all blog rules assume that the post is blog-worthy according to your existing standard, whatever that may be.

When to Blog It

• idea cannot be reduced to 140 characters
• the idea is meant to encourage intelligent conversation
• the idea is designed to gather input
• the idea is important enough to be associated with your identity
• you’re posting non-twitter-supported media, e.g. videos
• when you want it to last (think searchable 5 years from now)
• asks for input that you want to capture

When to Tweet It

• personal status update, e.g. seeing movie x, landed in san francisco
• you’re broadcasting the existence of interesting content on your blog
• the idea can be condensed to 140 characters
• random, somewhat interesting idea, but not worth blogging (else, blog)

If you don’t get a match after running through both sets of rules then you either shouldn’t be sharing what you were about to share or you need to adjust your rules.

Obviously these rules are based on my own personal conceptualizations of blogging and Twitter, so you may have to adjust accordingly. But hopefully this first attempt will prove useful to someone. ::

I’ve changed the color and increased the font size on my Twitter posts on the right. I’ve done this for a clear reason: to highlight the fact that Twitter being in my sidebar is part of my actual blogging platform, as opposed to supplemental or peripheral content.

In other words, in terms of my own Twitter content, Twitter is blogging.

This is part of my ongoing attempt to define precisely what Twitter is to me, and to resist the temptation to let it creep into other spaces, such as chat and “place to hang out”.

If it ends up being all these things to me later that’s fine, but I do know that the primary role for Twitter, at least as it’s presented on my site, is that of a supplement to my main blog. ::

Like many others, I’m trying to figure out where Twitter fits. Not just in my life online, but in general.

I recently tweeted a question:

Should non-DM tweets include context? In other words, should Twitter remain a micro-blogging platform vs. chat, or is it too late?

This captures part of the problem. It’s not a micro-blogging platform if half of your posts are, “It depends on the flavor.” That is a chat fragment, and it alienates followers rather than attracts them.

So if Twitter is for micro-blogging, then what’s “micro”? Obviously the 140 character limit is meant to help us with this question.

My original understanding of Twitter was along the lines of “personal status updates”, with some “personal musings” thrown in, e.g. “I wonder why chipmunks always look so happy. I must investigate”. But in both cases the tweets are still complete ideas–even if they’re short ones or mostly meaningless.

Basically, I saw Twitter as a means of not losing touch with the personal influence of those you care about. So perhaps you have a friend who’s always complaining about rude drivers, but he moved away. Well, it brings a smile to your face when you see him tweet, “They should require people to get a license before they can drive. Oh, wait…” Not because what he said was that funny, but because it’s your friend complaining about bad drivers like he always does.

But now Twitter’s becoming something else: Chat, current events search, etc. I suppose this isn’t a problem since you don’t need to follow those who “misuse” Twitter (whatever that means), but it’d be nice to have something to tell a newbie when they ask what you do with Twitter.

Right now I’m not sure most users could give a tight answer. ::

Here’s a really cool web application that shows incoming tweets that have certain emotional keywords in them. Give it a go.

[ Twistori ]

My buddy Ken just put up a short Twitter primer over on his blog. The primer was spawned from my dumb ass accidentally responding to him directly in my Twitter window rather than via direct message. So here he’s showing us how to reply to people’s tweets directly and send direct messages to people.

Definitely good stuff to know for Twitter users.

[ A Twitter Primer | kenswain.com ]