ALD in Twitter

Twitter is one of the main sources directing people to this ALD History Blog. I have recommended Twitter personally to many. With this post, would like to tell still to more people, how Twitter can be beneficial, also related to ALD.

Very basic features of Twitter:

• Twitter calls itself sometimes a "microblog service". 
• There is a general limitation of 140 characters for each post. 
• Twitter used "hashtags" (#) as keywords to organise content. 
• Users are identified with the "@" symbol. 

One can attach keywords (#) and users (@) either integrally in the "main text" or as additional links. Additional links are best grouped at the end of the post.

Here are some general ALD-related hashtags.

• #ALDep : Atomic Layer Deposition. (Simply ALD does not work, as it is the abbreviation for too many things.) 
• #VPHA : Virtual Project on the History of ALD --- search together with #ALDep to separate from other meanings of #VPHA. 
• #BalticALD : Baltic ALD conference series
• #FinALD40 : 40 Years of ALD in Finland - Photos, Stories -exhibition
• #AVSALD : American Vacuum Society conference series on Atomic Layer Deposition (was in use in 2014 especially)
• #CVDep : Chemical Vapor Deposition
• #ALDCoE : Finnish Centre of Excellence on Atomic Layer Deposition

In an individual Twitter post, you can simply click on the hashtag, to get a  list of all posts containing that hashtag. You can also make searches with the hashtag.

Here are a few examples of active ALD-related Twitter accounts and users (there are tens of people with ALD background, active in Twitter):

• @aldhistoryblog (this is the ALD History Blog's Twitter companion)
• @jv3sund, the creator of BALD Engineering, Jonas Sundqvist 
• @aldpulse
• @PlasmaALDGuy
• @rlpuu, personal account of the author of this blog, Riikka Puurunen

A nice feature in Twitter is that one can create separate lists of Twitter users to follow. Those lists can be held private or public. Here is one good public ALD-related list, which the author updates actively, which I recommend for finding relevant information and users: 

• ALD list by Henrik Pedersen @hacp81 

One further note about how to mention other users in your post, which I have learnt - hope I got it right. If you mention someone by their username "@..." in the post, that user will be notified personally of the post. You can do this basically in two different ways. If you start your post with @..., this particular post will appear only in your and that person's stream. (That is: the post is public, but not so many will automatically see it.) If you begin with the post with a normal character (simply a point will do, ".@...") the post will appear in the general Twitter stream (many more will see it).

If you start using Twitter, remember to follow @aldhistoryblog! 

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Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) - in atmosphere of Openness, Respect, and Trust