About Twitter

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send posts (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (SMS), instant messaging (IM), email, or an application such as Twitterrific.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.

How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?

You can subscribe to the UCSD News Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/9233092.rss

Depending on the e-mail client and web browser you use, there are different ways to subscribe to a feed. A few of the most popular web/e-mail clients are listed below:

Web browsers:

Firefox (PC or Mac): If a web page has an RSS feed associated with it, a small orange icon () will appear in the address bar to the right of the page's URL. This will allow you to create a "Live Bookmark". When you click this icon, a "Live Bookmark" window will pop up. In this window, you can name this bookmark and tell Firefox which bookmark folder to save it in. Choose "OK" to save your bookmark.

Safari (Mac): If a web page has an RSS feed associated with it, a blue "RSS" icon () appears in the Safari address bar. Clicking on this icon will bring up a window in which you can name the bookmark and decide what folder to save it in. Choose "OK" to save your bookmark.

Internet Explorer (PC or Mac): Using Internet Explorer 7, if a web page has an RSS feed associated with it, a small grey icon (between the 'Home' icon and the 'Print' icon) will turn orange (). Simply click on the orange RSS icon to read the RSS feed. RSS feed requires a third party reader for Internet Explorer 6 and earlier.

E-mail clients:

Thunderbird (PC and Mac): Instructions for setting up RSS feeds are available on the Mozilla web site.

Outlook (PC): Currently, RSS is not natively supported. Third party solutions (such as NetGator) are available to access RSS feeds in Outlook.

What do I do if my browser doesn't support RSS?

A variety of companies offer standalone RSS readers called "aggregators"; many of these are free. The RSS Compendium offers a fairly comprehensive list. CNET has also reviewed some popular aggregators in a 2004 article. To add the This Week @ UCSD feed to one of these aggregators, you will need to copy the feed address (http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/thisweek/rss/thisweek.xml) and paste it wherever required by the subscription process.

What if I want to start a Twitter account of my own ?

Easy. Sign up here.

I still don't understand! What should I do?

You can contact us at thisweek@ucsd.edu if you have any questions or comments about our news service or the RSS feed.