I’ve blogged about using Google Talk and Twitter together in the past but I figured it was worth briefly covering it again for the Google Tutor crowd. This is something which is amazingly useful and I have come to regard it as indispensable. It takes a bit of getting used to but in the end, you’ll find it so useful that when you switch it off, your computer will feel a little weird.

If you are one of the many people who regularly use Twitter (including myself and the Tutor), you will probably start off by going to the Twitter website to write your entries and also to check on the updates of others. However, this quickly becomes a very tiring and monotonous task. Not everyone updates at a set time so you may find yourself checking the site countless times a day. Plus if you go to the site to write your entries, you have to navigate to the site, log in, wait for the password to be accepted, wait for the internet connection to speed up, etc, etc. By this point, your brain is transmitting the message “to hell with this, let’s give this up and find some beer!”

So why not simplify the process by pushing everything through your Instant Messaging program? By doing so, you’re automating the entire process, you don’t have to keep continually signing in, and when new updates arrive, they come to YOU, instead of you going to THEM.

I am biased towards Google Talk as it is my favourite IM application (and this IS a Google-related website after all!). However, if Google Talk doesn’t light your fire, you can easily push Twitter through another IM program such as :

• Windows Live Messenger
• ICQ
• Google Reader
• Microsoft Outlook (OK, I know this isn’t an IM program before anyone tells me in the comments!)
• Skype.

But anyway, back to Google Talk.

Google Talk has to be added in the Phone and IM section of your Twitter settings. No password is required by Twitter. Just add your username and save it. Be sure to make sure that the notifications are either set to “on” or “direct messages”.

To finish the activation, just add twitter@twitter.com as a contact on your GTalk list. It should auto-approve your chat invitation right away and that’s it set up.

You’ll now start to receive updates through Google Talk from people you’re following. The continual beeping and popping up windows can quickly get on your nerves so you might want to consider disabling all chat notifications (through the GTalk settings). That way, the only notification you will receive is an minimised orange flashing window on the Windows taskbar.

If you want to send an update to Twitter yourself, just open the Twitter chat window on GTalk and type your message then send. Your Twitter account is then immediately updated.

The beauty of using Google Talk is that if you have chat logging enabled, everything you send and receive is logged and archived in your Gmail account for future reference. This can be particularly invaluable if you receive a lot of links from Twitter contacts or a lot of industry information which you may need later for future reference.

Another advantage is that if you use the web-based version of Google Talk and you also use Mozilla Firefox, you can set it to load into a browser side-bar so you can always see it while you are browsing on other sites.

Feel free to add either myself or the Tutor to your Twitter lists. Plus if you leave your Twitter username in the comments, we will try to follow you too.