Yep, I’ve talked about Twitter before, in fact I talk about it quite a lot… why? Because it is one of the best ways I know to stay in the loop and be part of the conversation.

For those not up to speed, Twitter is a bit like an instant messenger, although instead of sending a message to one person, it’s broadcast to every person who has signed up to follow your updates… you can ask your followers a question about anything and get instant feedback, you can run polls - or you can just keep in touch and join in chatting about the topics being discussed… oh, and you’re limited to only 140 characters per post, so make sure you get to the point quickly!

Here’s an example of what goes on (click for a bigger pic), this is my Twhirl window - Twhirl is a desktop application for Twitter which makes things so much easier to follow and jump into a conversation. I highly recommend using a desktop client over the Twitter website, it’s far more engaging and immediate.

Twitter is a lot of fun, and IMO is the ultimate social network - it’s so easy to stay in touch with a lot of people at once and a great way to let everyone know what you’re doing… even if you don’t think you’re interesting enough, you’d be surprised at what other people like to pick up on. If you’re looking for a sense of community, or just want to keep up with the late breaking news in your field, Twitter could be just what you’re looking for.

Come and follow me @Gamblz.

You’ve seen the twitter updates on the sidebar here, and you’ve seen my Introduction to Twitter post, but have you signed up and started using it yet? If not, I urge you to give it a try.

Once you do start using Twitter, one of your first questions will probably be how do you find other people with similar interests to follow and communicate with? Fortunately tracking  and finding conversations on Twitter are very easy, with a number of third party tools available to do just that.

Summize

One of the most useful Twitter apps you’ll find - Summize is basically a search engine for Twitter.

Enter a search term that you’re interested in and Summize will return the latest tweets that contain that term. You can reply directly to any thing you see, you can subscribe to an RSS feed of your search (really handy if you want to track what other people are saying about you on Twitter) and there are advanced search options to further zero in on your target (you can even restrict it to people who live in your immediate area).

Quotably

More of a conversation tracker, Quotably lets you input a Twitter username and groups threads of conversations together - it’s a quick way to follow all replies that come in when someone asks a question, even if you’re not subscribed to all the people answering it.

Twemes

It’s becoming quite common on Twitter for people to use hash tags (putting ‘#’ before a keyword). Twemes provide an easy way to search for these hash tags and also rank which tags are the most popular (during the last 1hr, 24hrs, 7 days, 30 days or 1 year).

Twemes works really well if you want to follow a live event and those attending are using hashtags in their posts (a lot of tech conferences do this regularly).

Twits Like Me

Not really a conversation tracker, but Twits Like Me lets you search for other people to follow that share the same interests as you, I’m not 100% sure on how it finds a match, but part of the algorithm would look at who your friends are, and who their friends are etc.

Twubble

Very similar to Twits Like Me, Twubble searches your friends graph and finds common people who are friends of your friends, but not yet being followed by you.

Twubble is an excellent way to find interesting people on Twitter once you’ve built up a few friends on your network, because it ranks them by the number of your friends who follow them, chances are good that the top recommendations have something good to say.

I’ve got another video for you to watch from those awesome guys at CommonCraft.

This one explains social media and social networking in plain english… it focuses a little too much on ice-cream, so if you’re watching your waistline and can’t resist the temptation of a great double-choc, caramel swirl, then you may want to wait until you know you can beat it…

Social networking (and the use of social media sites) is one of the key concepts I want to hammer home at Gamblz.com, through use of sites such as Twitter and FriendFeed, we can create a community that is tailor made for each and every one of you - it’s about connecting with the people you trust… some of you may want to hear from the casinos and poker rooms themselves, others may just want to connect with similar minded friends… it’s all about value to YOU, and it’s all controlled by you, if there’s someone you can’t stand listening too, it’s easy to block them out.

It really is the way of the future, and it makes so much sense from a gambling point of view that I know you’re going to benefit from using social media communities.

Ok, here’s the video - enjoy… any questions, ask them in the comments below.

FreindFeed is a social network aggregator - it’s also a great place to start conversations, especially now that they’ve added ‘rooms’ to their feature list.

A FriendFeed Room is kind of like a forum/message board in that it keeps track of threaded conversations from a specific group of users… where it differs from a regular forum though is that there are many more ways that you can interact with it and integrate it seamlessly with your other online activities.

For instance, applications can use either the room’s RSS feed or gain access via the FriendFeed API to make use of this information in many different ways - you can read content via the FriendFeed website, or desktop applications such as Twhirl or AlertThingy along with all your other lifestream content (blog posts, twitter messages, flckr photos, StumbleUpon recommendations etc.) posted by your friends from the one location.

Think of it as a ‘forum with flexibility / RSS aggregator’ and a way for you to keep up with everything that is important for you.

Sign up for a free account with FriendFeed and head over to the Online Gambling Room, join the group and post an introduction. It’s a great place to discuss everything happening on Gamblz.com and to join in on the conversation. The room is moderated (by me), so hopefully we can cut back on the spam - if you see something that’s inappropriate in there, let me know (direct message or @ reply via Twitter is a good) and I’ll do what I can to keep it tidy.

I’ve mentioned it a little before, but I think everyone has a lot to gain by using Twitter… especially if you like playing poker or winning big at the casinos.

Why?

Twitter is like an early warning system - it’s collective intelligence and it’s a great place to network… it can also be a little noisy and a bit of a time sink if you let it (that’s not necessarily a bad thing though!).

Here’s a great little video made by the guys at CommonCraft that explains exactly what Twitter is and how to use it:

Do you have more of an idea now? The best thing you can do is create a free account and start using it, here’s a few tips to help you make the most out of Twitter:

• Download a desktop client such as Twhirl - you can use Twitter via their website, but you’ll miss out on a lot of the interaction and you need to ‘remember’ to use it… a desktop client makes things 100% easier and is essential to getting the most from Twitter.
• Follow every interesting person you can find - the more ‘relevant’ people you have in your network, the better the information you’ll get. Following more people will create more noise for you to sift through, but you’ll be rewarded with a richer experience.
• If someone follows you, and they seem to have something to say on Twitter, follow them back. It’s always nice to grow your network with mutual contacts and participate in two-way conversations whenever possible.
• Have fun and don’t be afraid to join in on the conversation. Nearly everyone I’ve met on Twitter has been very approachable and more than happy to help out and chat.

Twitter has exploded in popularity over the past few months, and it’s not hard to see why… join now and see what all the fuss is about, follow me on twitter here: @gamblz

Twitter is something you’ll be seeing me write about a lot - I love Twitter, it’s a fantastic little networking tool that keeps you in the loop and involved with ‘the conversation’.

The basic idea behind twitter is that anyone can post short ‘tweets’ on what they’re doing right now. Everything is kept to 140 characters or less (so get to the point!) and you can even post and receive via your cell phone if you want. Twitter is everywhere, Twitter is pervasive and Twitter is a lot of fun! From an online gambling perspective it has the potential to be pure gold and consequently is one of the networking tools I want to really utilize a lot with the Gamblz.com community.

If you already know what you’re doing on Twitter, you can follow me on gamblz, if you’re not too sure what this is all about, don’t worry - I’ll be posting a lot more about how to use Twitter soon!