First, you do not need to join Twitter to view the information that is coming from GA, however to actually participate you'll need a Twitter account.
Twitter allows people to post small blurbs ("Tweets") in real-time via the web or their phones. Each tweet is immediately viewable to all.
The official source for PCA GA info is the PCAByFaith account. You can watch that account for posts about the proceeding (although it's been a little spotty).
However when attending the GA or a conference, value is added through the interaction with others. You can get similar value via Twitter by viewing and participating with others on Twitter:
Tweets related to a specific topic (such and the PCA GA) can be identified as such by adding a "hashtag". A hashtag is simply an arbitrary moniker preceded by a "#". This allows users to search for the particular hashtag and get all of the related tweets for that topic. In the PCA GA's case the hastag that people are using is "#pcaga" (without the quotes). So, to see all of the tweets for the GA and the related conversations you can go to http://search.twitter.com/ and enter "#pcaga" (again, without the quotes) and see the conversations in real-time. This way you are only seeing tweets specifically related to the GA (rather than trying to find and follow alot of people who may be tweeting about other stuff and then weeding through it all. Not that this doesn't have a certain value, too).
If you would like to comment on the GA or someone else's tweet you just add #pcaga to the end.
Pro Tip: A desktop client such as Seemsic or TweetDeck make following the GA and setting up other searches (eg. #pca) much easier and more friendly (no having to refresh the search page, etc). If you want to use a desktop client, you will need to have a Twitter account beforehand.
Comments welcome!
Also See:
Okay, I am a complete twitter idiot. I have Tweet Deck. Where do I enter the hashtag that will allow me to follow the "unofficial" tweets?
I tried putting #PCAGA in the tweet line, and that did nothing.
Ken Pierce
Trinity PCA
Jackson MS
Hi Ken -
To put it another way, those who are posting about the PCA GA are putting #pcaga in thier tweets. To see what they are posting go to http://search.twitter.com and enter #pcaga to see those tweets, or use a desktop client like those mention to search for #pcaga.
Only if you wanted to Tweet a comment about the GA do you put #pcaga in the tweet.
Many thanks! KP
Sorry Ken - I missed that you are using TweetDeck - Click the Magnifying Glass icon in the Upper Left hand corner (8th icon over) and enter #pcaga
It might be mentioned that another good place to look to see all of the information together is at www.twibes.com/PCA. This is something you can join if you are already on Twitter and it pulls together all the PCA tweets.
My favorite comment on the above:
"@UndertheMtn: I just learned about twitter tags from . . . my church denomination. Am clearly not as ahead of tech curve as I thought! #pcaga"
For Mac users, Nambu is a better Twitter browser (in my opinion) than either Tweetdeck or Seesmic.
To download Nambu just hop over to Nambu.com
Thanks for the twibes, mention, josh. I'll go add myself there now.