If you have customized, or want to customize your Twitter background, then you need to know what the best dimensions are to use.

The new Twitter layout is pretty good as far as functionality, layout, and organization goes, but it leaves a lot less real estate for those that love to spruce up their backgrounds. With a lot more people accessing Twitter via mobile devices and desktop apps, the background has faded a bit in relevancy, but it’s still an important part  of your brand.

A well done Twitter background allows you to match your brand across multiple multi-media efforts. Whether it’s print, online, or everything in between. Unfortunately, there’s just a lot less area to be creative. Don’t let it stop you though. Listed below are the new dimensions. Get out there and be creative! Let’s see what you can come up with!

Post your Twitter background creation here as a comment, with a link to your Twitter account, and whomever I think has the cleverest, most useful implementation of Twitter’s new dimensions will win a year’s FREE hosting for 2 WordPress Blogs.*

Twitter’s New Interface Dimensions

Width 1040px
* 100% of users will always see at least 41 pixels on each side.
* 72% of users viewing in 1280 x 800 or higher resolution will see 108 pixels on each side.
* 28% of users viewing in 1440 x 900 or higher resolution will see 200 pixels on each side.
* 4% of users viewing in 1920 x 1080 will see 312 pixels on each side.

Keep these dimensions and numbers in mind when developing your new wallpaper.

To enter the contest follow the steps below:

1. Leave a comment on this post with your name, Twitter username and please be sure to fill out the email field as that is how I will contact you if you win. I do not enjoy SPAM, so please be assured I won’t share your email with anyone else. Any posts that spam with website links will be disqualified.

2. You will need to follow me @WebErika.

3. After you follow me, send a RT: “RT @WebErika The New Twitter Background Contest: Win FREE Hosting! http://ow.ly/2ZgG0″.

4. That’s it! Be sure to have your AWESOME background in place before you leave a comment.

I’ll pick the Twitter background which I think is clever and utilizes the much narrower dimensions allotted to us by Twitter. As a bonus, the top winner and top 2 runner ups will be spotlighted on my sidebar with a link to their website or Twitter profile. Clean, rated PG websites only please.

This is my contest. My final decision prevails.

Contest entries MUST BE POSTED no later than 11:59PM EST on November 30, 2010 to be qualified and entered.

Websites will be hosted on my company’s fully dedicated servers. The 2 free hosting accounts will each be for one domain, per account. Actual domain name not provided. (you can register a domain name here) Each account will be a Linux hosted account with cPanel access, Fantastico, 250MB disk-space, 5GB bandwidth, 10 email accounts. (although, I highly encourage the winner to consider Google.com/hosted as an email provider and I will even walk the winner through how to set up a Google.com/hosted account. Google.com/hosted accounts provide up to 100 email users as well as their fantastic SPAM and virus protection.)

Contest Terms and Conditions:

Quite obviously, no purchase is necessary, but this is a SKILLS contest. So I would like to see some awesome entries. I don’t care if they are made by the entrant or outsourced and then presented. It must however be the entrant’s Twitter account.

Now for some more boring but necessary stuff:

I have noticed in my internet wanderings, that many people have been wondering “Why Twitter?” And deep down inside I get Twitter, and I longed to try and put it into words that the layperson could understand, but I was always hit with writer’s block. And my particular understanding was from a pure Search Engine bias. The more backlinks you can get and the more you are “out there” then the probability of people finding you or your services on the internet increase. SEM 101.

Today, the best response to “Why Twitter?” came to me out of the fog …

It’s elearning in tiny bite size morsels. Learning about your friends, learning about resources, learning about how other people work their daily schedule. It can also be elearning on an entirely subconscious level. You aren’t aware of the tiny little facts that enter your brainstream until at some point in the day, week or month, someone mentions something and you’re like “Oh yeah! I just read that on Ed Dale’s Twitter” or “Wow. Michelle MacPhearson just twittered all about that!”

The possibilities for those interested in expanding their online knowledge increase exponentially with Twitter.

Back to my moment of revelation when it finally dawned on me WHY anyone would want to use Twitter…

I was checking my Twitter Followers the other day and making sure I was following them too. Trying to figure out who they were and how they found me. After I pushed the “Follow” button on a bunch of them, I woke up today to a stream of so many great Twitters I was just astounded. The reach of these Twitter friends from around the world and the wealth of knowledge is so fantastic, it literally leaves you a bit gob smacked.

Sure, some if you might of heard of, there is a lot of idle water cooler chat and sometimes it’s not earth shattering, but I picked up more great new sites and ideas in the span of 10 minutes than I had all week in my usual day to day activities.

“Why Twitter?”

Twittering has the infinite possibility of exponentially increasing your knowledge of the wide open and far reaching internet as well as keeping you in touch with friends, family and colleagues in a relaxed and friendly environment. - Erika L. Rich

I would love to hear what you all think about what I said or your particular reasons for using Twitter.

Gloriously, I am a Twitter user. Not as much as some, but a Twitterer nonetheless and whilst adding a new entry I had the brilliant thought of “I wonder if there is a plug in for Outlook to use Twitter?”. So a-googling I go and lo and behold I find: OutTwit! Amazing. Downloaded, installed and away I Twitter. For the reasons why I would bother using Twitter is fodder for a different day and a different post. In the meantime, check out TechHit.com. Lots of great utilities for you Outlook peeps.