Another way of making the most of out of Twitter via Snitter

A little while back @Tuna tweeted #(word) ie something like #twitter.

I thought this tweet looked quite strange, as it was a hyperlink, so I clicked on it, and discovered that the #(word) hyperlink created a 'Search' link in Snitter, via Terraminds, which allowed me to see all of the 'tweets' which include this (word) - even from peeps who I didn't follow.

At the time I thought - cool - but nothing more!

However, it took until now for me to realise the true potential of this 'Search' feature in Snitter.

This evening, I've been interested to learn more about: Mahara (an e-Portfolio tool which works well with Moodle) & dimdim (a free [beta] web conferencing tool which a colleague told me about today).

I tried my Twitter network to see if any Twitterers had heard or used these tools but no-one online had. So I tried the 'Search' feature in Snitter and discovered what other Twitterers, outside my network, had been tweeting about these tools. It was very useful to see what others were saying about these new online tools.

I've even starting following some of the Twitterers I found in the 'Search' feature, as an opportunity to build onto my current Twitter-knowledge base.

I've also 'RSS feed' these 'terms' into my Google Reader, so now that anytime someone 'tweets' about 'Mahara' or 'dimdim', I'll be able to see what they are tweeting about.

So the next time you come across something new and interesting - try the 'Search' feature in Snitter ... and discover the 'conversations' happening around this tool, beyond your Twitter network.