Twitter for Kiters

We're excited about the use of Twitter for providing beach reports for kiters around the world. This is a new way you can quickly share current conditions with other kiters and represents a new level of weather data - live observations.

Here's a list of the most common operations so you can quickly understand the process, and contribute to it.

Step 1: Get a Twitter Account & Follow

Twitter is an exicting new technology. As a reader, Twitter allows you to follow friends, or celebrities, as they post status messages about themselves.

For example, kiters might want to follow 5 time World Champion Aaron Hadlow, or King of the Air champion Susi Mai. Find out what they are up to, where they are riding or what tricks they are working on. They posts tweets, short 140 character messages, to their Twitter profiles from either the web, or their mobile phones anywhere in the world.

But that's just the beginning.

Step 2: Post Tweets

Next, posts a couple tweets about yourself from your web browser. Share your twitter profile with others. Soon you'll attact your own 'followers'.

Anyone that follows you will be notified each time you tweet

Step 3: Register Your Mobile Phone with Twitter

By registering your mobile phone, you can post your tweets from anywhere. Go to the Twitter Settings page and click on the Devices link. Follow the instructions, and you'll be sent a message to your mobile phone. Confirm the message, and you're good to go, now you can post tweets from your mobile phone. Cool!

Step 4: Tweet with a #hashtag

Finally, the last thing to learn is the #hashtag. Until now, only people that follow you, or click your twitter page can view your tweets. Twitter also offers a way to search for tweets that contain what's called #hashtags. A #hashtag is just a word, preceded by a # mark. By ending your tweet with a special #hashtag, you enable anyone that is viewing the #hashtag to find your message. #hashtags are a way of creating an ad-hoc group, that anyone can post to.

Spot Reports on LocalKiteSpots

LocalKiteSpots.com monitors twitter #hashtags for spot reports. Each map monitors a single #hashtag. You can quickly identify the map's #hashtag, it appears at the Reports from #xxx Twitter Search section on each map.

Remember the #hashtag for your map. If you want the message to be visible by people that monitor the #hashtag, include the #hashtag at the end of your tweets

What to Report

Report anything you like, but here's what your fellow kiters really care about.

Here's a great post, but really, any content is welcome 

Cherry Beach 20k SW 
30 kiters out  
10 & 12m kites
Get out here now! 
#kitegta

BONUS - Post a Picture

You can also attach a picture to your tweet. Take a shot on your phone, and attach it, just include the #hashtag as normal, and a link to the image will appear.

Say Hello!

When you get started, post a Hello message from your phone using the #hashtag. Doing this will let you test out everything, and also let others know you're using this #hashtag service.

Spread the word, on every kite forum you can think of.

What NOT to Report

Get Hashtag Tweets on your Phone

Twitter will deliver tweets that are sent directly to you, or from people you are following.

Since #hashtag tweets are not directed at anyone, currently you need a 3rd party application.

Check-out http://web-alerts.com or http://tweetbeep.com for RSS to SMS services.

Provide these services the RSS feed URL for the search you want, specifically your map's hashcode search. Replace kitesurf with your map's hashcode. %23 replaces the '#' character. Click the sample link to see all tweets related to the #kitesurf hashtag.


Thanks!

Many thanks to Gunther Eysenbach, for the idea of using #hashtags in this way and this applied use of Twitter for kitesurfers.