A view of French life from the TweetDeck

IF you are a regular internet user then there is a good chance you will have heard of Twitter.

Even if you are not then it made the headlines recently in helping The Guardian break a gagging order that restricted it reporting on a parliamentary question.

One of the most popular ways that people use Twitter is through a piece of software called TweetDeck as it makes it easier to follow the messages of friends and keep up to date with news stories.

This popularity leads to questions being asked from users around the world and these are dealt with by Richard Barley (@richardbarley) who offers advice and tips about the software while working from his home in the Vendée.

"It has been quite a whirlwind year for me really," Richard said. "I was travelling to Maidenhead every week to work in the office of my previous employer."

"I was in the UK from Monday evening through to Thursday evening, so it pretty much took up all my week, it was pretty rough.

"It is tough living away from home in your own country, but leaving my wife Lisa and children behind made be feel bad and it was a bit of a viscous circle really."

Richard was always keen to try out new things and when Twitter came along he soon signed up and began to see how useful it was for staying in touch with people and for discovering new things online.

"When you are waiting for your flight you can read a book or listen to some music, but I started pinging out messages via Twitter, which people soon replied to," said Richard.

"They would send messages saying don’t worry, or have your tried this place, or pass on tips about a coffee shop to go to.

"I ended up having really interesting conversations with people and as the number following me increased I began to really enjoy the instant, and random, nature of communication through Twitter."

When TweetDeck came up on Richard’s radar he lived up to his ‘early adopter’ label and began investigating the software that enabled people to follow the updates of their friends in a more organised way.

And those evenings spent in a hotel room whilst working back in the UK were put to good use, which ultimately led to a new opportunity.

"I had been using other Twitter clients such as Twhirl and tried out TweetDeck although at first I wasn’t sure I could deal with it," said Richard.

"But I came back to it after a few improvements and updates, thinking it was better and I found myself helping answer people’s questions about TweetDeck which were being posted to Twitter.

"I soon realised that each time I came up with an answer I should write it up and eventually wrote a TweetDeck FAQ on my own website that people turned to and I saw the number of visitors to the page rocket.

"It was at around this time that the developer of TweetDeck, Ian Dodsworth, pinged me a message saying I sounded like a bit of a TweetDeck guru, and he kept me in touch with new releases so I could write something in advance and continue to help people."

Richard continued to help Ian by writing articles from his hotel room, aware that it was raising his own profile and thinking it might help him get out of the job he was in and move into social media, an area he was enjoying more and more.

"I was over in London for the day job and arranged to meet Ian for a coffee, after we sat down one of the first things he said was that he’d like to employ me – I nearly fell off my chair," said Richard.

"Ian had secured some investment to enable him to work full time on TweetDeck and was close to drawing some more money in which would let him take me on as community manager.

"So a few months ago I started in this new role from my house in Foussais-Payré, in the Vendée, and I have this customer facing role so pretty much any help or support questions about what’s possible, why is this happening, comes to my door."

In his role as community manager, Richard highlights some new features in TweetDeck

But how does he explain to friends his new job working for a company that makes a piece of software that is given away for free and doesn’t make any money at the moment?

"It is one of the hardest things to explain to people, previously I could say what I did and that I worked for a company that sells things," said Richard.

"When people hear about Twitter on the news they realise that I am involved with something connected to it, and they have started recognising the TweetDeck logo on the Apple iPhone adverts, so that’s really exciting.

"But it is great that I can now work from home full time, which means I am with the kids and drop them off at school, while at the end of the day I can close the laptop and in just a few steps I’m with the family.

"We had it all mapped out before moving to France expecting it to be nice and simple, but things can change quickly, and I think you’ve got to look for opportunities and luckily working for TweetDeck came from having that view."