The Twitter Book

• By: Tim O’Reilly & Sarah Milsten
• ISBN: 978-0-596-80281-3
• Publisher: O’Reilly

reviewer: Mikel King <mikel.king@jafdip.com>

Ok I felt this was onebook that I had to finish the review for today of all days. There is something remotely HHGesq about the book. In fact while reading it I often found myself thinking that the title should have been The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to Twitter. Therefore today being Towel Day and all I felt compelled to complete the review.

Honestly I found this books’ simple yet friendly manner to be both enjoyable and informative. Tim and Sarah’s complimentary writing style are the key to this book’s success. Honestly I think it would have been a diservice to attempt to over complicate the usage of Twitter by writing a bloated text full of huge pages with a step by step walk through guide.

It is a simple service that deserves a simple book, one that does not insult the inteligence of the reader and honestly this one does the job fantasticly. In addition the authors explain many of the Twitter enhancement services and and site available in a nice overview fashion. Nothing in this book is bloated of heavy, demonstrating just enough to illustrate the points without wasting ink or paper.

My only issue with the book is that I wish it were more of a pocket size reference, however; were that the case it would be difficult to actually see the pictorials included. Without these screen shots the booked would be half it’s size and probably less than half as useful.

Ultimately this is a good book to learn some wonderful insights to Twitter. Sure you could learn much of this by digging through blogs and wikipedia, and of course asking your tweeps, but if you want a fast start this is certainly the book for you.