Just a few of MANY uses:
1. What are people in your neighborhood doing or talking about? Search by "location" to find people near you.
2. How would locals describe what I'm watching? Whether it's a sporting event or a soap opera, hundreds of others are tweeting about the same show you're watching. "How would a local describe this person's behavior?" Twitter gives you that gold.
3. What's in the news? Most newspapers and TV outlets post links to their stories as soon as they break. In Turkey, all the TV channels tweet when a new show is about to come on, giving you an easy TV Guide.
4. Potholes in your street? Broken playground equipment? Twitter gives you instant access to your city councilman, mayor, congressman, etc., even in foreign countries. (See story below.) Cities also post important legal changes and announcements on Twitter.
5. Like to shop? Many local malls and major chains use Twitter to advertise discounts, events, and to receive customer complaints.
I've used the "location" function to find people checking in from our neighborhood. One day I found a neighbor complaining to the Mayor about the road construction, which has made life difficult for us as well. I RT'd her complaint and added my own. Others joined in. The mayor responded that he didn't understand our complaint. This led to a fury of angry responses as other people who were following the conversation joined in, which I was copied on as my name began to be RT'd again and again. (Here's a snippet screen shot for proof):
I learned both how locals feel about the mayor and many new words for complaining about him and road construction in Ankara in general. I also made a new connection with neighbors.
I love using it for #2 above. For example, discovering that Turks didn't seem to like The Biggest Loser.
When I'm listening to a song on the radio and am not sure about the lyrics, I'll type a few words of the song into "search" and inevitably find someone tweeting the lyrics and completing what I couldn't understand.
The possibilities are endless. Tweets are 140 characters long so a person's thought has to be condensed or concise. This helps you think about forming similar thoughts in the language concisely. Turkish has some very long words and sentences so this is a good thought exercise.
Most apps also have a translation function, giving you a click-option to convert the words to English which sometimes saves you from having to look something up.
How do I start?
Many people go to Twitter.com, sign up, and then say "I don't get it." Twitter is not designed to be used through their website, you need to install/use an app on your computer or mobile device.
1. Tweetdeck is an easy-to-use program that allows you to easily organize your feeds into lists and see them by columns. You can see the same lists/columns on their website.
2. HootSuite is a website that also allows you to see your tweet lists in column format. I use HootSuite's app on my iPad/iPod. It has a built-in translation function as well.
Via your app or on the Twitter website you can create "lists," name them, and add specific people to them, organizing your feed. You don't have to follow someone to add them to a list. The key is to organize people into lists so you don't get 1,000 people clogging your "home" feed.
Now, whenever you're exploring the website of a mall, newspaper, television channel, government, etc. look for the Twitter logo button on the page. Click it and select "Follow" to start seeing everything they post in your "Home" feed and/or add them to one of your lists. When you're watching TV and it displays the Twitter username of whoever is talking, use the "find user" function to display their tweets and to follow them.
I create lists of users by categories. I have a list of tweeters in Ankara that I follow, some of whom I've met personally, some I just like what they have to say. I have a Turkish news list with every newspaper and journalist I can find for instantaneous news updates. I have a weather list where tweets about my local weather show up. I keep a list of ex-pats tweeting in English about Turkey as well.
In the "search" area of your app, choose a word you want to search for, like "Ankara." This will show you all the instantaneous tweets containing "Ankara." When I see smoke in the distance I'll search for "yangın," (fire) "Ankara," or the name of the neighborhood I think it's in. I will save the search if I want to come back to it quickly for updates.
I have a saved search for "Birlik Mah" which displays tweets of people about or in our neighborhood. When I then look at that person's tweets I can figure out if he lives in the neighborhood and I add him to my "neighborhood" list.
Relating back to my last post, learning language is easy and fun when you incorporate it into things you already love doing. I interacted with neighbors, mayors, journalists, etc. via Twitter while I was in the States, and I've just continued that practice in Turkey.
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