The Twitter Book - Softcover

As easy to grasp as a tweet, this book cuts through the tiresome twitterhype and delivers a bunch of sensible, down-to-earth material on using and enjoying Twitter.

-- Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing and author of Little Brother

Ever been to Nepal? Me neither. However if I ever do go, even though the aborigines who live there are just like us, I will enlist a Sherpa to guide me through the landscape and the nuances of the culture. That's what The Twitter Book is to Twitter. The Twitter community is, at its heart, filled with passionate people engaged in conversations. It's just like Main Street USA. However, culturally, Twitter is its own country with its own language. Its various conventions like DMs and hashtags sound more like retro phrases from the 1960s than the underpinnings of one of the largest social networks on the web today. However, with a quick study, anyone can jump in, engage and accomplish their goals. With The Twitter Book, Sarah Milstein and Tim O'Reilly give you everything you need to get started while leaving just enough for readers to explore on their own. It's an terrific resource I am recommending to all of our clients and anyone else who is curious about Twitter.

-- Steve Rubel, SVP/Director of Insights, Edelman Digital

Once again, O'Reilly has put together a great, comprehensive primer. If you're ready to dive into the world of Twitter, I highly recommend this book!

-- Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos

Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein are two of my favorite tweeters, and they've just written The Twitter Book, a pleasingly-designed 240-page guide to making the most out of Twitter.

-- Mark Frauenfelder,

Movie stars, media figures, captains of industry and book reviewers are doing it, but how can businesses discern the twits from the tweets? O'Reilly and Milstein present as lucid and intelligent an overview as you'd want or need. The format is concise but quite rich, and there's plenty here to convince skeptics that employing Twitter as a marketing tool is a very good way to engage customers.

-- Richard Pachter,

As with anything that gains high profile popularity there are plenty of Twitter haters out there, though the role that Twitter has played in the recent Iranian elections seems to have brought more legitimacy to Twitter in the eyes of many. With popularity come books and quite a few are already out there about and for twitter, but my favorite so far is The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.

-- JR Peck,

The 234-page guide is so helpful that many readers no doubt will tweet its praises and thank "(at)timoreilly" and "(at)sarahm" — the authors' Twitter handles — for helping people understand why Twitter is emerging as the Internet's most powerful communications vehicle since e-mail.

-- Michael Liedtkeap,

...appropriate for those you're trying to convince that Twitter is all the rage. The book reads like a beginner's how-to guide, which means you could even use it as a subtle way to encourage less than stellar Twitter users to improve their Twittering ways.

-- Jennifer Van Grove,

"Media organizations should take note of Twitter's power to quickly reach their target consumers." --Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly), in a Los Angeles Times interview, March 2009

This practical guide will teach you everything you need to know to quickly become a Twitter power user. It includes information on the latest third party applications, strategies and tactics for using Twitter's 140-character messages as a serious--and effective--way to boost your business, as well as how to turn Twitter into your personal newspaper, tracking breaking news and learning what matters to you and your friends.

Co-written by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein, widely followed and highly respected twitterers, the practical information in The Twitter Book is presented in an innovative, visually rich format that's packed with clear explanations and examples of best practices that show Twitter in action, as demonstrated by the work of over 60 twitterers.

This book will help you:

• Use Twitter to connect with colleagues, customers, family, and friends
• Stand out on Twitter
• Avoid common Twitter gaffes and pitfalls
• Build a critical professional communications channel with Twitter--and use the best third-party tools that help you manage it.

If you want to know how to use Twitter like a pro, The Twitter Book will quickly get you up to speed.

About the authors:

Tim O Reilly (@timoreilly), founder and CEO of O Reilly Media, has hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. Sarah Milstein (@SarahM) frequently writes, speaks and teaches about Twitter; she was the 21st user of Twitter.