Follow ENN on Twitter

Are you using Twitter to track trends that can affect you or your business? ENN's Twitter stream is updated in real time throughout the day. To see the latest ENN tweets, follow the site's official Twitter stream here.

Want something more personal? For our own views on the news, follow ENN Editor Sheila Averbuch.

"Twitter's a big, chattering waste of time"

If this is your impression of Twitter, or if you just plain don't get it, it's worth trying anyway. Think of Twitter as a Google for gossip…but one where it’s easy to screen out the noise (”here’s a picture of my lunch!”…”I can’t find my keys!”…) by keyword-searching relevant topics. If something makes it to Twitter on your chosen topic, or from a trusted contact, it’s probably a truly useful bit of information — pre-screened by a global network of info scouts, all on the lookout for interesting tidbits, and all eager to tell everyone what they’ve found.

These tidbits can become very useful: business development leads, early news on important software or hardware developments from your key vendors, or intelligence about competitors. By choosing to follow those sources who regularly broadcast interesting tidbits, you'll be ahead of the game in whatever area is your specialty. Start off tweeting about and following tweeters who cover topics you are passionate about. The wider applications will then become clear.

Useful Twitter resources

• Try Twitterfall for a good way to track who’s talking about what. Like the sparkly bits falling down the screen in The Matrix, the scrolling tweets give a real-time, bird's eye view of who's saying what.
• TweetDeck and HootSuite are two great tools for managing the tweeters you're following, keyword-searching Twitter, or managing your own multiple Twitter accounts.
• Mr. Tweet does a fairly good job of helping you find tweeters you might like. It makes recommendations by analysing the people being followed by tweeters you've already chosen to follow.
• Get strategic about the way you or your organisation uses Twitter with advice and insights from Mashable, or get personalised direction from a professional -- we used design consultancy FissionC