Dispatches

If you're new to Twitter, follow this guide to find out how you can join the discussion. You can read our Twitter posts either on Twitter.com/C4Dispatches or on the C4 Dispatches website.

Twitter is a microblogging service enabling you to publish short messages (140 characters; similar to a text message) to a whole group of people simultaneously.

Setting up on Twitter

You don't need to be registered with Twitter to see what everyone's talking about. But you do need a Twitter account to ask a question. This only takes a few minutes to set up.

First go to Twitter.com
Click on 'Join!' to create your account and complete the short form. Twitter displays both your chosen 'username' and your actual name. Click on 'Create my account' and you're done.

You can check to see if your friends are on Twitter or skip that and go straight to your home page by clicking Home in the menu at the top of the screen.

Make your comment ('tweet')

You make comments on Twitter by typing in the Status box labelled 'What are you doing?'. To mark a message for a specific person you mark it with an '@' symbol, so to send a question to the Dispatches team you should start your message with @C4Dispatches. Note that messages sent in this way can be viewed by everyone, just like writing an open letter to a newspaper.

To see the questions other people are asking and what Dispatches is replying you can search for '@C4Dispatches' using the search feature on Twitter. Alternatively if you just want to see want to see what Dispatches is saying you can look at the C4 Dispatches Twitter page

If you don't want to direct a message to someone but want to identify it with a subject you can use the '#' tag followed by a keyword. We've noticed people talking about the series using '#Dispatches'. You can find these tweets by searching for '#Dispatches' using the Twitter search feature and add your comments to this pool by simply including '#Dispatches' in your message. Note that on a Mac the '#' key is Alt+3.

If you find the Twitter website interface a little constraining you may want to try one of the many applications for reading tweets such as Tweetie or Tweetdeck. These enable you to set up separate panels or windows for specific searches, so you can easily keep track of all the 'C4Dispatches' tweets in one place.

If you have any difficulties getting set up, read the Twitter Support and FAQs on Twitter.com.