My Twitter updates from www.twitter.com/philosophybites now appear in the right hand column of this weblog. They include links to philosophy-related material on the Web.
For the uninitiated, a 'Tweet' is simply an entry in Twitter (which is a kind of microblogging - each entry restricted to a maximum of 140 characters).
A 'Retweet'(abbreviated to RT) is when someone forwards someone else's Tweet.
The @ sign is used to refer to another person's account name on Twitter - so I am @philosophybites
(sometimes when people reply to other people's comments they include this @ sign, but nothing about the original message being replied to, so that can get quite confusing).
A 'trending' topic is one that is popular enough to appear in a constantly updated top ten.
The hash tag (hard to find on a Mac keyboard!) is a way of labelling a topic so that others can easily find it in the search box.
You can send direct messages (i.e. not public ones) to other people on Twitter once you join.
The easiest way to add URLs is by shortening them, e.g. by going to www.tinyurl.com
If you join Twitter (which is free) you can follow other people's tweets (i.e. they automatically appear on your Twitter home page)...and they can follow you. I have nearly 900 followers at the moment.
It's a lot simpler to get the hang of than it sounds from this. Please follow me if you are already on Twitter.