Did you know that you could discover a lot of cool information about coming of age movies, actors and treble music on Twitter? No? Well you can. As you know, I was one of the early adopters of Twitter. When I looked back in the archives of TheSkyKid.com, I saw that I first mentioned Twitter in September 2006 – and then wrote a more detailed post about the service in October.  Of course, now all of these posts seem really funky – as now the Twitter mania is everywhere - in main stream media and from companies and individuals.

Twitter recently introduced a search function that allows you to get  instant, and most importantly, human generated feedback on what you might be interested in.  I will demonstrate its usefulness with a search of the name of the famous young star Bill Milner ( in the screenshot shown to the left).

 Various opinions come up – people talking about the movies he is in or sharing links to reviews or video clips – and all in real- time.  I say “real time” as the results you see are subject to constant change, as people share more opinions on the topic. That’s why if you follow this direct link to the search results with Bill Milner you are likely to see different results than what’s shown in the screenshot to the left.  You can do a search for just about anything – and in most cases would be pleased with the result.

Next time you see a  movie – you can send a tweet (message) – sharing your impressions from it. For example, here is what @ni9n had to say about the last film I reviewed “Let the right one in”:

“Swedish film “Let the right one in” is like the antidote for Twilight..from Bella’s fantastical perspective of vampires & Edward Cullen.”

Moreover, on Twitter you can ask questions. For example – ” Could anyone recommend me a really good horror story? ” and expect to receive a direct answer from people who saw your question. All they have to do is put @ before your user-name and type their answer. Of course, it also works vice versa – so once you are in twitter you can always send me a message @skykid. (Note those messages are public – if you want to send a twitter user a message viewable only to him/ her you should use the direct message function – which requires that you follow each other in advance).  Of course, if you follow me you would also be the first to know about a new review, or an interesting site or a resource I have stumbled upon.

Twitter is a great way to get and share information and create communities around shared interests. You can read another answer to the question ” Why should I be on Twitter? ” at Lifehacker.com (one of my favorite blogs).