Twitter backgrounds capture and tell a lot about a twitter profile. Whether it’s about you, your company, your band, your course, or your cause. Backgrounds can set tones, change minds, intrigue and put off.

We’ve been instructed to pick a compelling and interesting background for our twitter profiles.  Whether stock or custom designed, here are 14 twitter background sites for you to shop for a twitter background.

Yes, I know, I still have to work on mine.  

1. TwitterBackgrounds.com

At TwitterBackgrounds.com you’ll find a bunch of backgrounds from free to not-free to custom backgrounds to brand your twitter profile.

TwitterBackgrounds.com provides backgrounds categorized by artistic, nature, photo, professional, simple, sports and more.

2. Twitter Backgrounds Gallery

You’ll find more twitter backgrounds at the Twitter Backgrounds Gallery.  A site that allows you to submit a twitter background and have it voted on.

They have a list of highest-rated backgrounds as well as categorized backgrounds that include 3D, Abstracts, Collages, Minimilism and a bunch more.  Twitter Backgrounds Gallery also holds contest, has pro twitter tips articles as well as other twitter resources.  Check it out.

3. TwitterImage

TwitterImage is a site where you can browse through some very nice free twitter backgrounds as well as their library of customized backgrounds they’ve done for some of the Internet Stars we all know and love.

Starting at $100.00, TwitterImage will create a custom twitter background for you.  They also do backgrounds for YouTube, MySpace, Blog Skins and Logos.

4. twitbacks

At TwitBacks, in less than two minutes you can create your own background and brand yourself on twitter.  Then, for a one-time fee of $10.00, for 30 days, twitbacks will promote your twitter profile on various social networking sites including GoogleBase, FeedBurner and more.

5. TwitterBacks

TwitterBacks is a sight that helps you have a more professional presence on twitter by providng free backgrounds.  If you don’t like any of the backgrounds at twitterBacks, you can use the specs or template to create your own.  Which is nice because the template are PhotoShop files and if you use or are familiar iwth PhotoShop you can open them up right in PhotoShop and provide the necessary information for your twitter profile and viola – you’ve got a nice, professional and free twitter background.

6. Custom Twitter Backgrounds

At Custom Twitter Backgrounds you can generate a custom Twitter Background for free. Choose from various themes available in custom Twitter backgrounds. You have options to add your photo, name, twitter id, some text, etc. in your custom Twitter background image.

7. cheth Studios

cheth Studios hand-picked some great twitter backgrounds from DeviantArt.  Most of them are PSD files you can edit in Adobe PhotoShop as well as image files you can insert your images.

8. MyTweetSpace

MyTweetSpace allows you to create your twitter backgrounds for free as well as pay $59.00 to have a custom background created for you.

9. TweetStyle

Here are some more free backgrounds for your twitter profile.  TweetStyle also does customized backgrounds as well as offer background tips on their blog.

10.Peekr

Peekr is not so much a background but a cool toolbar button that will display just the twitter background of any twitter user.  Drag the Peekr toolbar button to your browser’s toolbar and you’ll be able to view any twitter background with a click and then restore things back to normal by clicking on the button unpeekr that sits in the top-center of the twitter background.  Very cool.

11. Free Twitter Design

At freetwitterdesign.com you can step through creating your own twitter background that have the same look and feel as those done by professional graphic designers.  Using the on page editor below, freetwitterdesign allows you to customize the various attributes of your twitter background.  Cool!!

12. Twitter Background Checker

This tools checks to see if your twitter background looks like “poo-poo” in smaller or higher resolutions.  Twitter Background Checker is a fun and simple way to see what your background looks like in different resolutions.  You can tweet about it as well as download a PSD (PhotoShop again) template to create your own background.  Fun.

13. Twitter-Images

At twitter-images.com you can browse a bunch of free twitter backgrounds to use for your twitter profile.  For $49.00 you can get a customized background.  Categories that include Abstract, Cars, Girly and Grunge, twitter-images.com has over 100 free backgrounds.  Check it out.

14. Twitter Customizer

At the time of this article, twitter customizer creates backgrounds for $47.00.  Fill out some information and within 72 hours you receive a proof of the work.  Also, if you have at least 10,000 followers, you qualify for a free custom background.  Nice.

For more twitter backgrounds try searching twitter “twitter backgrounds” as well as TwittChew.

TechCrunch recently sat down and interviewed Biz Stone, co-founder of twitter.  Here are two videos from that interview.

Biz Stone Talks Twitter Business Models

Biz Stone on Real-Time Streams

Original Source: Video Interview: Biz Talks Twitter Business Models

So how come you can only send messages that are no longer than 140 characters?  The 140 character limitation for twitter messages comes from the length of text messages cell phones send and receive.

In twitter, the 140 character message limitation was set because there is a 160 character, SMS message limitation that exists for cell phones.  SMS stands for Short Message Service.  Twitter reserves 20 characters for your username.  That’s why there’s 140 character limitation for a twitter message.

However, if you’re in need of sending a longer message, here are a few tools to help you do that.

1. 140it

140it is a service that will take your tweet and shrink it for you.  You can browse to their web page at 140it.com and enter your tweet, then click the 140 It! button and your tweet will be shrunk by replacing words such as “because” to “bc” and “2″ for “to”.

140it also has a toolbar button you drag to your toolbar.  When finished writing a tweet on twitter.com you can click the “140 it” button and it will shrink your tweet.  Pretty cool.

2. TweetShrink

TweetShrink also offers a tweet shortening service that’s extremely fast.  You can enter your tweet at their site but I did not see a character counter like 140it has.  So as you type your tweet, you don’t know how many characters you’ve typed.  Now, just like 140it, tweetshrink offers a bookmarklet that goes on your browser’s toolbar so you can shrink the tweet you enter at twitter.com.

3. TwitterEyes

TwitterEyes is an experimental Firefox add-on that places a button under the tweet box at twitter.com that says TwitterEyes.  After you type in your tweet, click on the TwitterEyes button and presto, your tweet has been shrunken.    Remember this is in experimental mode so you might find different results.

4. TwitterContd

TwitterContd allows you to write a 1250 character message as well as upload 100MB of  audio, video, images, and documents.  Using OAuth authorization service, you can connect to twitter and TwitterContd will display your tweets that you’ve sent.  Create your tweet and TwitterContd will submit it automatically for you.

5. Twitblogs

Twitblogs also allows you to upload images as well as video.  There home page says, “Twitter + Blogging = Twitblogs”.  With microblogging using twitter and the rich environment that blogs provide via text, images and video Twitblogs allows you to combine both worlds.

You’ll also be able to shrink URLs, create Hashtags, create short blog posts and save them as drafts, and much more.  Check it out.  Twitblogs is pretty nice.

6. shortText.com

shortText.com allows you to write up to 30,000 characters, link images and videos, use rich text, allow comments, make a message private, buy custom-named URLs and more.  It’s a complete solution for someone who wants to share media online without owning a website or a blog.

7. Bigtweet

BigTweet allows you to place a bookmarklet on your browser’s toolbar.  When you’re on a web page you click on the BigTweet bookmarklet and a pop-up window will display over the current web page with the link to it already in a message box with the title of the web page.

You can post to twitter and friendfeed as well as delicious links and on and on and on.  BigTweet also uses bit.ly to shorten URLs and track stats on the links in your tweets.  PCT – Pretty Cool Tool.

8. TwitterMail

Twittermail.com allows you to send tweets by email.  Just email to twittermail.com and twittermail will do the rest.  Twittermail will create a special email address for you that you use to send tweets via email to.

When you send more than 140 hcaracters, Twittermail will tweet a short message for you and provide a link in the complete tweet.  They use twitpic so you can send images as well.  You can also send your tweets with syntax that will delay your tweets for delivery at a future time.

9. Twitlonger

Twitlonger allows you to, well, provide longer tweets.  Using a text box that has more room for your tweet, Twitlonger makes sure you provide a tweet longer than 140 characters before you can post it to twitter.  When you click on the Post It button, twitlonger will automatically post your tweet to twitter.

10. Twerbose

Twerbose has a simple editor as well as a rich text editor that allows you to provide text, images (2 max) as well as video in your tweets and the ability to add tags and make your tweet private or public.

Using OAuth authorization, the secure way to link your twitter account with third-party tools, Twerbose pulls in your twitter profile and displays your twitter image (avatar).  While you type in the simple editor, your tweet displays below the edit box as it would display on twitter with the link that people would click to read your full tweet.

11. txtB.in

txtB.in is a very simple web page that contains a text box to write your tweet.  When you’re done writing, click the big save txt button and you’ll be presented with a shorten URL to your tweet and a button that says Tweet This! After clicking on Tweet This! button part of your tweet will be placed in the main twitter.com page message box with the link to your longer tweet you created at txtB.in.  Very simple, effecient and effective.

If you find yourself going over 140 characters often, you might consider starting a blog for free at the Google Blogger service.  That way you can provide really long tweets (articles), tweet the link to the blog post and enjoy some Google Juice (eventually getting indexed in Google so people can find your articles for a long time).  

Today is Memorial Day in the United States and here’s a list of 10 tweets honoring those who have died while in military service, as well as those who serve and have served.

Keep reading at the hashtag #memorialday.  There are other Memorial Day hashtags you can follow as you’ll discover them in other tweets.

Photo Credit: BL1961

Here’s a YouTube video from commoncraft called Twitter in Plain English that they did in March 2008.  This is a great video that helps explain what twitter is and where it resides in your social networking tools.  Enjoy.

The direct message in twitter is a message between you and another person.  It is a private message between you and that person.  However, you need to be following someone in order for that person to send a direct message to you and they need to be following you in order for you to send them a direct message.

If you’re new to twitter and you’re using the main twitter.com site to interact with the people you follow as well as your followers interacting with you, then you can send direct messages using the following sytax:

D <username> <message>

and here’s a real message:

The moment you type the letter D followed by a space in the status update box, the message “What are you doing?” disappears and the words Direct message is displayed above your message.  So twitter senses immediately what you’re trying to do – send a direct message.

The next bit of information you provide for a direct message is the username you’re sending it to.  If you type in someone’s twitter username, it will display after the words Direct message, as seen above.

What Happens Next?

Now, the moment you click on the send button, twitter checks to see if that person exists, if they do, twitter checks to see if they follow you, if they are following you, then the direct message is sent and everything is good.

If the username doesn’t exist, twitter will display a meesage that the user doesn’t exitst.  If the user exists and is not following you, twitter will display a message at the top of your browser that you can send the person a ‘follow username’ message and see if they follow you back.  If they end up following you back, then you can send them direct messages.

Clear as mud?  Good.

Again, if you’re new to twitter, this will be helpful to know but if you’re an old-twitter-timer, then you’ll understand.  However, you could be someone who’s been using twitter for quite sometime through a third-party app and never know how the direct message really works on the main twitter.com site.

Sifting Through All Those Messages

If you’re on facebook, direct messages between two people are like private email messages that are listed in a response/reply list.  This is nice because you can read through the history of your conversation and refer back and forth to what’s been said.  But with twitter, you have a list of all your direct messages in one list from everyone who sends you direct message.  At least on the main twitter.com/#inbox page.

If you find yourself using the main twitter.com page to send and receive direct messages with others, you can use the Direct Message menu selection on the right sidebar.  This will put you on the direct message page where you can view your inbox and sent list of messages between you and the folks you’ve been sending and receiving direct message to and from.

Instead of a flowing stream of messages just between you and one other person, you’ll have to alter between the Inbox and Sent list to see what they’ve sent you and what you’ve sent them under the sent tab.  This is tolerable, unless you send and receive huge amounts of direct message and never read them.  Then it can become overwhelming.

Before I conclude this post, take a look at the drop-down box on the message page.

If you’ve never sent a direct message from here to one of your followers, then they will not be in the drop-down list of followers.  Once you’ve sent them one direct message from this page, then that username will show up in the list.

You’ll also receive email messages of your direct message if you have the Email when I receive a new direct message checkbox checked, under the Settings page and Notices tab as seen below.

There you go.  Everything you need to know about the twitter direct message.

This past week saw a bunch of twitter news, articles, books, etc. Here are just a few of those twitter sitings on the web. To start, one of the most notable discussions was the #fixreplies issue with twitter.

The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein.  The book includes topics ranging from setting up your profile and background to retweeting and using the different 3rd party applications and services geared towards the twitter user.

Mashable always produces excellent social media news and that includes a ton of twitter articles not only for a week but in a day.  So I’ve selected two of the articles they produced last week that I particularly like.

In their article 5 Impressive Mashups of Twitter and Flickr, writer Ben Parr lists 5 services that pull twitter and flickr together to make interesting ways you can include photos with twitter.

Photos are  always popular as people click on them out of curiosity.  TwitPic is evidence of that as folks update their twitter status messages with links to newly taken and interesting photos they’ve uploaded to TwitPic.  My article Sharing Photos on Twitter is a testament to that since it’s one of the most popular blog posts here on my short lived (so far anyway) DailyTwiTips blog.

Also to come out of Mashable was The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter by Leah Betancourt.  From listing journalist sources for twitter to tracking tweets to joining a twibe for journalists this article lists tools and resources good enough for non-journalists as well.

Darren Rowse also writes and has others write for his TwiTip blog.  This past week I found TwitterFired: The Top 10 Tweets To Get You Fired funny as well as a great article and discussion on How To Unfollow On Twitter With Class.

Over at Digital Inspiration, Amit wrote about how to Find the Meaning of any #Hashtag on Twitter.  We all use hashtags to organize tweets by topic and the service at tagdef allows you to find the origin of a hashtag as well as list trending tags, random tags and new tags.

So there ya’ go.  Just a handful of some good stuff written about twitter.

So there’s a lot of folks out there who think twitter sucks, is stupid, they don’t get it, it’s a waste of time, facebook is much better, this and that social network is better than twitter, etc., etc.

The people I know who use and love facebook seem to have relationships with their friends and family on facebook. They discover new people through those relationships, or friend people on facebook who they look up to or admire. They like the threaded discussions, the videos, the pix, etc.

What do you think? Do you think twitter sucks? Twitter is hugely popular and of course there’s people who think it’s going to get more popular and there’s people who think it will become less popular.

But I’m finding it interesting, that some of the people I know who come from facebook don’t like twitter and think it’s stupid. I want to know why, and if anything, I want to hear from twitter users who are using it because they’re trying to figure it out or because they feel like they have to, or whatever reason you’re using twitter for or trying to use twitter, let me know.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments and if you don’t want to leave a comment, select a response in the twitter poll below.  Well, whether you leave a comment or not, please select a response.