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.

Always an exciting time of the year for poker players as the World Series of Poker (WSOP) gets under way at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. This is the 39th annual running of the tournament and one that has a little twist this year.

55 events are set to be run, with the $10,000 buy-in main event in July the big finale… but this year we have to wait a little longer to find out who wins. Controversially, things have changed, once the final table is confirmed, things stop for nearly 4 months before we get the final table played live on ESPN in November.

On one hand, it’ll add a new dimension as all players at the final table (including the ones no one had heard of before), get a chance to secure sponsorship deals and really hit the big time before being shown live in front of a prime time audience, but on the other hand… the flow of the game will totally change, any reads players might have on one another will be nearly invalid by the time the final comes around. What if one of the players gets sick and can’t make the new time?

Whatever view you take, it’ll be exciting. Plenty of stories will emerge from the events - Gamblz will be covering as much as we can here on the website, via Twitter and we’ve just created a room on FriendFeed. As always, the more you can join in on the conversation the better - add your thoughts in the comments section on any post, chat away on twitter or discuss and share things you find via our FriendFeed room. If you have no idea what Twitter or FriendFeed are, check out our welcome page for an introduction.

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!