Remember, you an continue entering our contest via Twitter after you have entered via the survey.

Unlike FaceBook or another social network, Twitter is a private gated road where you can drive out but no one can drive in unless you want them to.

Signing up for Twitter is easy.

Go to www.twitter.com.

Select a NAME. Once it’s all verified, to check into your page, just go www.twitter.com/yourname.

Now, you can select to “follow” other twitter feeds – it is really like short form RSS (for those in the know) or a more efficient form of getting formatted email though the sender is restricted to 140 characters so for instance …

At it’s most basic, instead of picking through a long email with pointless graphics or blurbs, you get a short burst “ding” with the entire message … for instance, one great thing to “FOLLOW” are retailers who will alert you to sales:

Whenever Amazon starts up a GOLD BOX deal, you get a tweet.

Or of course, News & Deals from our friends at Kmart.

Or JetBlue airline deals?

Or information – everytime there’s a new post at TakeFive. You get a tweet notification.

SDCC?

Or a listing of 100 News & Information Tweets to Follow.

You are NOT required to post (or tweet or re-tweet), you can simply be a reader and click on links for deals or to read the full webpage.

Of course, there are thousands of celebs online (scifi celebs), business advice, travel advice, etc, etc … basically millions of people/companies will send out these short burst notifications-information-words of wisdom-brain dump to you. It’s simply to scroll past to decide what to read and what to ignore. At 140 characters, they have to be succinct though of course, some celebs are simply obtuse …  🙂

Language is generally uncensored so WARNING – especially the one that CBS is making into a sitcom – BLEEP My Dad Says (TOTALLY NSFW).

Or safer and funny – SESAME STREET.

Or inappropriate BP humor (but profane funny) from their “not-so-real” PR agency.

So, don’t be afraid of Twitter – it’s the best of the web and life (and the worst and the inane) all rolled into one easy to take 140-character capsule … come on in, the water’s fine!

Once you are signed up on the computer, you can access your FOLLOW’s on the computer or via your smartphone – again, you never have to tweet/write a post and/or simply go to the SETTINGS and set your posts as private but of course, you can still read all the public tweets.

Anytime you want to quit reading their posts, just click UNFOLLOW and unlike email where they still continue to bombard you – UNFOLLOW is UNFOLLOW.

Enjoy and good luck!