FAQs

If you wish to engage with the ABC or others via Twitter you will need to do the following.

• Visit Twitter.com
• Setup a User Name
• Select a twitter account view (e.g visit http://www.twitter.com/breakfastnews)
• Click Follow.

Or you can use the commands straight from the Update window in Twitter.
Commands

• FOLLOW username: this command allows you to start receiving notifications for a specific person on your device.
  Example: follow breakfastnews
• @breakfastnews + message:  Use this to send us a message.
  Example: @breakfastnews I though this guest this morning really answered those questions well
  
• LEAVE username: this command allows you to stop receiving notifications for a specific person on your device.
  Example: leave breakfastnews

However you can also use the search.twitter.com page and your favourite RSS reader if you just want to listen into conversations on a given topic or visit a user names twitter page and at the bottom you will see an RSS Link which you can follow as well. (e.g http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/2768501.rss) is the@abcnews twitter account rss)

Whilst the ABC may not be able to engage in all the conversations we would like to, we do encourage you the Audience to talk to not only us but each other.  You may find that many of the links we post are to parts of the ABC website that are conversations that we are hosting as well and we encourage you to link and join in our discussions.

Hashtags are a convenient way to rapidly alert your friends and others to content that you are interested in. Hashtags are in effect subject headings for a tweet. They also do not need to be at the start of the tweet. They simply need to be part of what you are saying. For example:  Tonight's show is going off #newinventors. The search results of which can be seen at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23newinventors or via your favourite RSS reader.

Hashtags enable the ABC and other audience members to follow the conversation as well.

Please note: The following links are not hosted by the ABC and the ABC has no editorial control over the content. (See issues)

We have broken this down into a few main sections. Television for programs on the ABC1 and ABC2, Radio for radio programs and Online for online websites and discussions.

#abctv1 - Discussion on generic ABC TV1
#abctv2 - Discussion on generic ABC TV2
#breakfastnews - Discussion on Breakfast News
#gruen - Discussion on the Gruen Transfer A
#newinventors - Discussion on New Inventors
#qanda - Discussion on Q and A
#4corners - Discussion on Four Corners
#mediawatch - Discussion on Mediawatch
#triplej - Discussion on triple j
#abcrn - Discussion on Radio National
#LM - Discussion on Life Matters
#abcunleashed - Discussion on Unleashed

Local Radio - Discussion on your Local ABC
For all the local stations please use #abc(station ident) e.g.#abc702 or #abc774 as numbers alone can get lost in the crowd.

Active accounts are those that have people looking over them on a regular basis and which are open for user interaction. This interaction may take place in Twitter only or happen on another platform such as Online, TV or Radio.

Feed accounts are those that are primarly based around an RSS feed or a collection of RSS and other automated feeds. Whilst they may be monitored from time to time there is no guarantee that your replies and comments will be dealt with immediately.

Like most technologies twitter has a language/syntax of its own and understanding that will go a long way in understanding what people are saying in this space.  Due to the constrains of the 140 Character limit short cuts are often used.  Many of the sms words that you may be familiar with will be used by most people when having conversations.    However Twitter also has terms that are used mainly in this space….

RT/Retweet/retweeting is a way of forwarding a message to your followers but giving credit or attribution to the oringal source:

RT @abcnews Plastic bag ban a 'breakthrough': http://is.gd/7p0h (about time I say)
Reads as follows… I am sending this message that I got from the @abcnews twitter account.

• AFAIK – As far as I know
• BTW – by the way
• DM – direct message
• FTW/FTL - For the Win and For the Lose are a couple of ways of saying that something good or bad has happened to you.
• FYI – for your information
• IMHO –in my humble opinion
• IRL – for in real life
• HT/hattip - as a way of giving credit to someone for an idea/link or conversation.
• kthxbai - o.k, thanks, goodbye. Often used as an end to a singular statement.
• LMAO – laughing my ass off
• LOL – laughing out loud
• MSM - Main stream media.
• OH – overheard
• OMG – oh my god/gosh
• ROFL –rolling on the floor laughing
• RT – when you repeat a tweet from someone else
• WTF – what the f***

• Fail Whale when Twitter crashes it often shows a picture of a whale being carried by a flock of birds. 
• FAIL: refers to something being very bad/not working. 
• Followers - People who follow your updates.
• lazy web : Primarily used when asking a question that you could find the answer to yourself, but know that Twitter will come back with the answer to. (And yes this list of Twitter Slang was partially generated through a tweet that read: lazy web: twitter slang I have so far... rt, FTW/FTL, fail whale, kthxbai anything else I should include in my primer document???)
• nom nom: Referring to eating something good.
• Peeps – people
• Tweeps/Tweeple –  peeps / people (on Twitter)
• Tweet(ing) –The act of posting to Twitter
• Tweets - Posts on Twitter by twitterers.
• Twitterati –Those who are popular on Twitter, or well recognised users.
• Twitterer - A user of Twitter (compare: Tweeter).
• Twittering – To send a Twitter message.
• Twoosh – A full 140 character twitter.
• w00t! – an expression of joy/excitement

http://is.gd/7p2w To make the most of the 140 characters most people on Twitter use one of the many URL shortening tools that are available.  So http://is.gd/7p2w will actually go to http://www.abc.net.au/news/?twitter which as you can see leaves a lot more room for content in the tweet.

Tweets published by these ABC twitter feeds are managed in accordance with ABC Editorial Policies. Of course the ABC has no control over audience generated responses and use of ABC related hash tags and cannot take responsibility for the content posted by its audiences.

Please note that the ABC has no control over either the service that Twitter and any client applications you may be using to access the service. The ABC is also not able to control the content accessible via Twitter (apart of course from that published by the ABC). Most of the discussion on Twitter is not moderated in any way and occasionally the language may be considered inappropriate by some users.

You should be aware also that once you have sent a message (a Tweet) you cannot edit it. You can delete messages you have sent but they may still be visible in peoples' timelines until they refresh their page.

Hashtag issues. Like most things on Twitter your content stream can become polluted with other content. No one controls hashtags and on any given day the search results may return a lot of content that is not ABC related. To manage this, the ABC may from time to time change the hashtag to enable users to follow our content and the conversations generated.