• Summit 2008 is a week away and we are making all of the final plans for what will be a great event. #

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If you look through the recent blog history, you’ll notice that there are a lot of posts with the heading, “Twitter Updates for [date]”.  These are updates that we’re posting to our Marketing Twitter account (http://twitter.com/CSI_Software) that are automatically being posted to our blog as well.  This is just one of the many things that can be done with Twitter.

So what is Twitter?  Twitter is a fairly new web application that allows people to answer the question, “What are you doing?”, before they’re even asked.  It lets you tell your friends what you’re up to.  We use Twitter here at CSI Software to update our customers on a variety of things through our three Twitter accounts.  We give you updates, or “Tweets” on The Summit, any upcoming trade show appearances, live demonstration opportunities, and more through the aforementioned Marketing account.  We Tweet to let you know when we post new Spectrum NG updates to the server, when a new version of our software is released for you to upgrade to, and any other important support notices through our Support account (http://twitter.com/CSI_Software), and we Tweet when new webinar schedules are posted, when new eLearning Lessons are available, and our new Tip of the Week through our Education account (http://twitter.com/CSI_Software).  

How do you get these updates?  Well, there are a number of ways to do it.  First, you can simply go periodically to each of the Twitter links above and check to see what we’ve posted.  That’s the old, “Web 1.0” method of doing it – still effective, but not really convenient.  Second, you can sign up for your own free Twitter account and Follow the CSI accounts that you want to get updates from.  You can even set it to send you emails or text messages whenever updates from certain people come in.  This brings you into the more modern “Web 2.0” realm, where the web comes to you – more on this later.  Creating your own account gives you a couple more options – you can subscribe to an RSS feed by clicking on the RSS link at the bottom of your home page, then copying and pasting the URL into a desktop RSS aggregator, like the Google Desktop toolbar.  That way, the updates just show up on your computer as people make them.  Also, if you are an iPhone or iPod Touch user, you can use a Twitter-interfacing application such as Twitterific or Twittelator to read and make updates while on the go.  To find out more about Twitter and to set up your account, go to www.twitter.com.

In the paragraph above, I made a reference to “Web 2.0”.  This is a term used to refer to the next generation in internet technology and how the internet is used.  Most of us these days are familiar with what is now called “Web 1.0”, which primarily consists of web sites which you seek out and visit to gather information, and these sites are the exact same site that another web surfer would read if they went to the same address.  One of the goals of Web 2.0 is to customize the information you see on the internet, and also to bring that information to you instead of you needing to seek it out.  There are many other components and goals of Web 2.0, but this latter one is what I will concentrate on in this post.

So what kind of content can be brought to me?  All kinds of things!  News articles, blogs, podcasts, you name it!  All you have to do is find the content source and then subscribe to it.  Most of these things are brought to you via an RSS feed.  RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”, and is a file stored on the internet that the publisher updates.  You can subscribe to this file with some type of RSS Aggregator (I like using Google Desktop) and whenever the publisher updates the file, you get the new content brought to you automatically! 

As you look around our site, you’ll see several Web 2.0 elements, such as this blog, our Twitter accounts, and several RSS feeds.  We continue to seek out more and more new technologies that we can leverage to increase our communications and to otherwise help you, our customers.  We enjoy being an innovator in this industry, and we look forward to staying that way.