The following is an excerpt from 140 Characters, page 9.

There’s the story you wanna tell, and the story a reporter wants to hear, and somewhere in between is the story that gets told.

-@realizing

Real reporting can take place within social networks. There are two key principles to remember.

First: Public Twitter and Facebook updates are a part of the permanent record, and all searchable content is fair game for journalists.

Second: A direct relationship with your social sphere is fundamental; keep it independent of the media outlet that employs you.

Keep your professional identity as a reporter independent and portable because jobs can come and go. You will want to retain your readers during times of change.

Additional caveats apply to journalism. This list is not comprehensive, but is rooted in experience with corporate blogging and investigative reporting.

Ten tips, in order of importance:

1. Own your smartphone and a great set of mobile apps.
2. Determine your employer’s social networking policy. If they don’t have one, write up a policy of your own and submit it.
3. Check sources and attribute-[shakes fist] check sources!
4. Think twice before posting: once for your source and once for your editor.
5. One drunken, angry tweet could ruin you.
   

   some things can’t be said in under 140 characters. especially after some champagne.

   -@jack

6. Jokes can almost always be taken the wrong way; expect this.
7. Never discuss a story before its time, or tweet about something before it happens.
8. Be as clear as possible with your sources about when you expect your story to post so they know when and how to promote it.
9. Avoid writing about colleagues or the workplace.
10. Follow other journalists: @jennydeluxe, @michaelbfarrell, @mat, and the rest.

“Oh look, I sent you a link.” “Oh, I sent you a link, too.” “That’s great, we’re journalists!”

-@mantia

You think you want to be a Twitter journalist? You’ll need to check your facts, provide a truly unique perspective, and most of all lead with action. Do this with fairness, accuracy, and more than a single source, and you will always have a job.

Today begins my first book tour, starting with a trip to Canada for a presentation on the Hypertext Edition.

Speaking at:

• FITC Mobile, Toronto, September 12-14
• Bambou Design, San Francisco, September 15
• 140 | The Twitter Conference, Los Angeles, September 22-23
• Bookshop West Portal, San Francisco October 20, 2009 – BOOK PREMIERE
• The 140 Characters Conference, Los Angeles, October 27-28

Here are a few places I know I’ll be visiting, but have yet to be scheduled:

• Swarthmore College, PA
• Harvard University, MA
• New York City, NY

Want to add your city to this list?  Please contact press@140characters.com.

Here are a few ways to include a reference to “140 Characters” in a tweet, email, or article. Instead of a hashtag, just use the mention:

The Full Mention
@thebook by @Dom Sagolla. http://140Characters.com A Style Guide for the Short Form.

The Big Mention
@thebook by @Dom Sagolla. http://140characters.com

The Short Mention
@thebook “140 Characters” http://dom.net/1

The Tiny Mention
@thebook http://dom.net/1

The Nano Mention
@thebook by @dom

The Amazon
http://j.mp/140-chars

The Borders
http://j.mp/140-chbo

The B&N
http://j.mp/140-chbn

The List
http://j.mp/140-list

Facts.

Due to Ship: October 12, 2009.
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 0470556137

The book jacket code.

<a href="http://j.mp/140-chars" title="140 Characters in 3D by Sagolla, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2440/4009911664_f49ae378a1_m.jpg" width="175" height="240" alt="140 Characters in 3D" /></a>

Thanks for blogging, linking, tweeting, emailing, and generally promoting the work.

Catch an early glimpse at the Recommended Reading section of 140 Characters over on Amazon’s Listmania:

Mastering Social Media

This list contains books listed at the back of 140 Characters, as well as a few extras I’ve added since sending the book to print.

I’m honored to report some early reviews.

From a designer:

Inspired by new mediums of publishing, such as Twitter, this book provides a refreshing look at the breadth of linguistic techniques that shine with the advent of the modern short form.

Britt Selvitelle, Front End Engineering Lead, Twitter

A developer:

In the midst of all the conflicting hype about Twitter, Dom Sagolla has produced a veritable bible which will guide anyone in participating in the most interesting social networking phenomena of the last several years (without appearing to be a newbie). His deep insights will inform both beginners and long-time Twitter users alike, and his inimitable style makes it an enjoyable read!

Andrew C Stone, @twittelator of stone.com

An author:

With [140 Characters], @Dom has captured and conveyed the potent new short form language of the emergent 21st Century Twitterverse in a way that only a master practitioner and true pioneer can.

Bruce Damer, Virtual Worlds pioneer and author of Avatars (PeachPit Press, 1997).

And a business school president:

Reading 140 Characters, I found out how to create value and look cool using Twitter.

Gifford Pinchot, co-founder and President Emeritus of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, author of Intrapreneuring (Harper Collins, 1986).

Pre-order your copy of “140 Characters” today from these fine booksellers:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Borders
• Books-A-Million

I’m excited to announce that John Wiley & Sons have agreed to publish the book 140 Characters!

I’ve already begun to work with Shannon Vargo over at Wiley, to bring this work to print and digital download.

In addition, my company DollarApp is producing a companion application which should ship by the time the book appears in print this Fall.

This arrangement would not have occurred without the help of Erin Malone & friends at William Morris Endeavor, and Adam Jackson at the Internets. I’d also like to thank Jon Varese for encouraging me, and thank YOU for reading and commenting on this site!

The book is currently in development, but you may view a brief excerpt on the new About page.

Stay tuned!

Have you watched the video demonstration of Google Wave yet?

What we have here is shrinkage: shorter times to update, shorter updates themselves, by word in translation, or by character in live typing.

Any time we see an acceleration of realtime transmission like this, we witness a revolution. With the telegram, then email, texting, instant messaging, Twitter, and now multi-party live typing and translation.

So much more of which we have not yet dreamed awaits us.

The 140 character limit shaped Twitter and the short format. The limitations of this new “cursor presence” will shape Google Wave and the carrier signals that follow.

When you are typing in a Wave and your cohorts can see every action, the lessons of 140 characters matter even more. Your skills as a writer using Facebook and Twitter will shine in this new medium. Google Wave exposes your abilities even more clearly, and even helps you learn via playback, automation, and live translation.

Twitter is elemental.

Google Wave is atomic.

Be ready to learn from this new mode of writing and collaborating, and bid adieu to email as we know it. Nothing can really replace Twitter at this point, but we may soon have the perfect companion.

For the skeptics: watch to see if the experience degrades gracefully across devices. Consider Twitter or your service of choice to be your platform, the board that carries you across this wave. Don’t let go, but get ready for a wild ride.

On May 26th, I’ll be speaking at 140 | The Twitter Conference, alongside two of my heroes: @bs and @atebits:

What Makes a Great Twitter App?

Panelists: Loren Brichter, Britt Selvitelle, Dom Sagolla

At the core of Twitter’s popularity is it’s utter simplicity. Building on top of that functionality while retaining the ease of use and visual appeal of Twitter itself is no easy task. This panel, including both external developers and one of Twitter’s own user experience players, will talk about the design and functionality choices they made, how they worked with the API to streamline them, and how you can apply these concepts to your own applications.

We’ll be discussing:

• Purpose-driven user interface design
  
• Managing system resources
• The limitations of mobile devices
• Working with the 100-call hourly API limit

Hope you can join us! Our session is from 11:30-12:30 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Update: Scoble took these pictures and MSNBC has a few shots of us on stage in the background during their report:

Props to @NerdBoyTV for the find.

I visited Portland this weekend, and had the pleasure of being interviewed on the infamous Strange Love Live podcast during BarCamp. Queue up to 53:30 to hear some History of Twitter and Odeo:

Thanks to Toonlet for inviting me on, and to Small Society for sponsoring my trip!

Originally, Adam and I decided to combine our writing efforts, and spent over six months refining our ideas together and preparing a proposal for publication.

During this process we realized that we really enjoyed working together, yet our ideas and literary voices were quite distinct. After weeks of discussion, we’ve agreed to produce our own separate works, and help each other along the way.

Adam has helped me produce this site, find an agent, and secure a publisher. So will I help him create, promote, and sell a book based on his success in social media. Adam’s book (which has yet to be named) will benefit from the same rigorous design and production process that we’ve followed with 140 Characters.

Adam and I share the same agent (the fearless Erin Malone), and we share the same philosophy of simplicity, focus, and craftsmanship.

I’m really excited to promote Adam as he tells his story of heading West without a dime to his name. He found a job, a home, friendship, and support using a tool I helped to create. It is an inspiring story that will make a fine compliment to the principles and various styles within 140 Characters. He has been instrumental in the early success of this work, and I mean to see that he enjoys the same success.

Thank you, Adam.