Pittsburgh PodCamp 3 was a great experience. The event this past weekend was an opportunity to learn more about blogging, podcasting, and other social media.
It also convinced me to try dabbling in Twitter.
Quoting Wikipedia:
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them....As of July 2008, over 2,200,000 accounts were registered.
The following exchange of "tweets" captures my experience so far.
Donnchadh @bobmayo Bob, what is Twitter and why am I on it? 8:25 AM Oct 20th from web in reply to bobmayo
bobmayo @Donnchadh , it's texting morphed into micro-blogging. The why part? I'm still learning. 2:51 PM Oct 20th from web in reply to Donnchadh
I get the sense that it can be a interesting communication tool. I'm just not sure how -- or if -- it will click for me.
Please comment here, e-mail, or tweet me with your observations on how Twitter does (or doesn't) fit into your online and real world lives.
.
Posts
6 comments:
Bob,
although the disjointed conversation in twitter can seem like babble (Babel?), I find it to be a useful view into the streaming thoughts, feelings, observations & rants of a loose-knit community I've allowed to form around me -- each of us have allowed our own communities to form, instead of all sharing an exact duplicate community.
..Alex.
I have had success using twitter for both personal networking and also networking for my website (www.whereyouarenow.com/blog). I have formed several friendships through the service and have met locals in person (a.k.a. a "tweet-up") who share the same interest in blogging and social media.
Twitter is also great at letting you have short little blurbs of conversation with people you may not know personally.
Because it's so easy to get involved in numerous bite-sized conversations at once, Twitter can evolve into a massive time suck if you're not judicious about how (and when) you use it.
That said, I've picked up a lot of business through Twitter, and I use it on a regular basis to help plan local events and keep up-to-date on world / tech / local news, by following interesting links posted by people whose judgment I (usually) trust.
Bob,
I agree with a lot of the other comments left here. I myself find it as an efficient way to tell many people the same thing all at once. I also find myself using it as a way to put out those random thoughts that are substantial enough to merit their own blog post.
Twitter is a great way to communicate to large groups of people at once with bite sized info when phone calls would take too long. I also enjoy the seemingly innocuous random thoughts of friends and associates throughout the day. As you already know, it's a great way to get instant feedback on news stories, as-it-happens-events, and articles/stories about things I might not have found on my own.
In short, I just like being connected with the ability to disconnect if I need to.
Post a Comment