I started using Twitter a few months ago. If you haven’t encountered it yet, it’s a kind of micro-blogging tool which lets you post updates about what you’re doing. Each update takes a similar form to Facebook‘s “John is…” function, and you’re limited to 160 characters, so it’s a bit like sending a text message.

You can see my latest update in the right column of this blog, or see my stream of tweets (that’s what the little updates are called) over on my Twitter homepage. Once you’re a member, you can follow other Twitter members. When you follow someone, all their tweets appear in your Twitter stream.

Frankly, it’s not immediately obvious what Twitter is for. As a copywriter, I joined without a good idea of why I was joining it or what I’d use it for. I mainly just wanted to work out what the hell it was all about: it’s not the easiest of things to get your head around, and the best way to work it out is to try it.

But since I started using it, it’s become clear there’s a lot more to Twitter than meets the eye. It’s not just a way to let your mates know you’re just back from the shops or down the pub. It’s a seriously useful tool that can help you in all kinds of ways.

I’d definitely recommend you get over to Twitter and sign up for an account now. But if you need some persuading, here are six things I’ve found it useful for:

Finding useful contacts. It can be a networking tool, basically. Whether you’re a web copywriter, like me, or in a completely different line of work, you can make some great connections on Twitter. One of the best ways is to take a look at the people you follow, and see who they follow. If anyone looks interesting, follow them too. Because most tweets are public, it’s fine to follow whoever you like.

Keeping in touch with your mates. I’ve all but given up on Facebook. I never entirely got the hang of it, and these days I find if I log in I just get overwhelmed with information. The most interesting bit is following friends’ status updates. And Twitter lets me do that, without all the other spurious stuff that’s part of Facebook. Of course, you’ll need to persuade your mates to join too.

Getting answers fast. If you have enough followers, Twitter becomes a bit like one of those services where you can text any question and receive an almost instant response. For instance, before a recent trip to Berlin, I tweeted asking for recommendations. Within a few minutes, I’d discovered that one of my followers had edited a guidebook of the city. Result!

Connecting with celebrities. When I discovered national institution Stephen Fry was on Twitter, I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Because it’s so obviously him tweeting, you get a direct connection to someone you only usually see on TV. Not sure how he deals with the massive number of direct messages he must get though. Apparently Britney’s on Twitter too, though it looks like a rather sanitised, PR-driven effort rather than Britney tapping away at a keyboard for herself.

Keeping up with the news. I’m not going to claim that Twitter is a useful tool for in-depth journalism and analysis of current affairs. But it’s great for getting eyewitness snapshots of events as they unfold. For example, there was an explosion on Slough Trading Estate the other week. I used to work there, so was interested in what was going on. Local news sites weren’t reporting anything, but by searching Twitter I found someone who was there as it happened. And just yesterday, one guy tweeted from a plane crash. Yes, really.

Venting your frustrations. I’m not sure how much my followers appreciate it, but I’ve vented at the terrible train service offered by First Great Western more than once. With Twitterific on my iPhone I can tweet from anywhere, and it makes me feel a little less helpless when I find myself awaiting a delayed train yet again. Try it sometime. It really does make you feel better.

There are plenty of other ways to use Twitter, and plenty of other reasons to use it. So if you haven’t given it a go yet, hop on over and sign up. You can tweet directly from the website, or use one of the many web-based and mobile phone clients to make it easier.

And if you don’t mind the occasional train-related rant, do add me once you’ve signed up. I’ll be sure to return the favour.

I moved house this weekend and hired a car; a tank-like Vauxhall Vectra. Actually, despite having the appearance of a lumbering behemoth, it wasn’t that bad being behind the wheel.

Bizarrely enough though, the car’s indicators got me thinking about how important it can be to conform to people’s expectations.

Conventions abound in virtually every product we use. They make things easy-to-operate and easy-to-understand.

Imagine if every kettle worked in a different way, or if some door handles were postioned on the ‘wrong’ side of the door. Making a coffee would be a nightmare. And each time you opened a door would be a gamble; it might hardly move, or it might fly open and send you crashing through it.

As any web designer worth their salt will tell you, conventions work online too. Following them is a good way to make your website easier to use. Just ask Jakob Nielsen.

Put menus where people expect to find them, make the normal things happen when people click links and using your site will be a less-frustrating, altogether more pleasant experience.

Challenging conventions

Every now and then, a company tries to challenge a tried-and-trusted convention. Just occasionally, they’ll do so successfully; think of the iPod’s click wheel. Why use ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons to navigate through lists when you can do the same thing faster (and more accurately) with a touch sensitive wheel?

But most of the time, these convention challenges fall flat. The Vectra’s indicators are a fine example – because they work in a different way to virtually every car I’ve ever driven. To turn them on, you push the indicator stalk one way. To turn the indicators off, you push the stalk the same way again.

It’s true that, like most other cars, you can also stop the turn signal by pushing the stalk the other way. But often it doesn’t work well; you simply end up signalling to turn the other way, and then get all confused.

Honestly, I’ve never driven another car like it, and I do apologise to anyone who had to share the Hanger Lane gyratory with me yesterday afternoon. I was trying to go right. Not right-left-right as you might’ve been led to believe.

I’m sure that, given time, you get used to this new way of doing things. But why bother when the old way works just as well?

Because this was a hire car, I was stuck with it for the weekend. However, if it had been a website with a dodgy navigation, I’d have been right out of there.

Clear benefits

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think challenging convention is always a bad thing. If nobody ever did it, all our vacuum cleaners would still have bags and the world wide web probably wouldn’t even exist.

However, if you do decide to do things differently on your website, remember that you’re asking a lot from your visitors. You’re asking them to learn a whole new behaviour, just for you. Essentially, you’re forcing them to do something different to what comes naturally.

For it to work, there has to be a definite benefit for them. It has to be easier, or faster, or better for some other reason. If it isn’t, don’t do it.

So be careful when you go against convention – or even when you bend it a little. Your great new idea might end up driving visitors away. If you’re running an online business, that could be costly.

Image © GM Corp

I’m not exactly a frequent flier. But I’m occasionally on the look out for good value flights to various places – usually for a holiday or short break.

It seems to me that booking flights is one thing the internet manages to be simultaneously really good at and really bad at.

On the up side, there are loads of places to go to find deals. There are thousands of web pages offering tips and advice. But on the other hand, there are so many sites selling flights and so much information that it’s virtually impossible to be certain you’re getting the best deal. It’s enough to send you running to the nearest branch of Thomas Cook.

I spent a lot of time last week trying to track down some good value flights, and wrestling with all the different travel sites out there. So I thought I’d explain how I found a decent deal.

There are only three steps, but I reckon they work best if your travel dates are fixed. They strike a good balance between finding a great price and not driving yourself mad hunting down the absolute cheapest deal:

1. Find which carriers fly the route you want and get a feel for what constitutes a good price.

This bit’s easy: search for flights on Kayak and Skyscanner. These are two of the most comprehensive flight search engines out there. They do a great job of searching thousands of flights across lots of different agents and airlines.

Skyscanner is best for short-haul flights with budget airlines. It won’t always return flights with traditional carriers like BA, but it does normally tell you who else flies the route you’re interested in.

If you find a price you’re interested in on SkyScanner, always check the text which says how old the quote is. If it’s more than a few hours old then make sure you hit the Check now button to see if the price is still accurate.

Kayak does the lot. Long-haul, short-haul – and it searches airline sites directly and other agents like eBookers and Expedia. It can take a while to perform a full search, but the prices it returns generally seem to be very accurate. If you use it in conjunction with Skyscanner, you should have a pretty exhaustive idea of which airlines fly where you need to go.

I’ve found Kayak’s prices pretty much 100% accurate so far, but its links out to the companies actually selling the flights don’t always seem to work. No matter – we’re just trawling for a ball-park figure anyway.

At this stage, try and narrow your search a bit. Come up with four or five options based on price, flight times and your preferred airlines (if you have any).

2. Start digging deeper. Search for your preferred flights across all the main online travel websites.

To kick off, try Expedia. It’s the bees knees when it comes to online travel and can show you hotels, tours and all sorts. But to keep it simple, just use the flight search. Note the options to select preferred airlines, times and whether you want to fly direct or not. These can help you home in on your preferred flights quickly

You should also try Opodo, eBookers and Travelocity. Then there’s Travel Supermarket, Flight Centre and STA Travel (STA aren’t just for students, though if you are a student, they’re probably the very first place to look).

Yes, Kayak has already checked most of these sites for you, but it doesn’t always seem to pull out the best deal of all. Cheapflights is a website that always comes up in Google searches, but don’t bother unless your dates are flexible.

Hitting those sites might take a little while, but afterwards you should absolutely know who’s cheapest. Now go to the airline’s own website and check the price there. It’s unlikely to be better than you’ve seen already, but occasionally you’ll bag a bargain.

3. Check for further discounts.

The main online travel sites are usually running promotions of one sort of another. They often take the form of voucher codes you can enter to claim a further discount on the price of your flights.

Although a Google search (e.g. ‘Expedia voucher code‘) will usually prove fruitful, I reckon the place to start is HotUKDeals. This community website highlights great deals and discounts – just type the name of the company selling the flight you’re after into the Find a Voucher box. If any vouchers are available, you should see them. This simple step netted me £50 off a holiday I booked last week, so it’s well worth bothering with.

And for a final bonus, you can usually pick up cashback on your purchase. Sites like Quidco have commission deals with websites like Expedia. But instead of hanging onto all the commission themselves, they’ll pay most of it back to you. Often it’s quite a significant amount. Quidco got me £50 back on a laptop last year and £12 on my house insurance, so it really is woth looking at.

(Incidentally, Quidco and HotUKDeals were founded by the same chap. I guess some people just have an eye for a bargain.)

If you do use Quidco, make sure you clear all cookies from your browser before signing into the site. That maximises the chance of the cashback actually registering properly.

And that’s it: find out who flies where you want to go; check the main sites; and search for discounts and vouchers. Then spend whatever you saved on a nice hotel or something. After all, you are going on holiday.

What have I missed? Where do you find cheap flights? Leave a comment and let me know.