Finally – I see a reason for Twitter
You might remember my last post when I mentioned my un-comprehension at the popularity of things like Twitter and Plurk. I’m not saying they don’t have a place… just not my place.
Anyway it seems I’m not the only person perplexed by plurking.
However loyal readers… behold!
I found out that Red Cross workers in America are using Twitter and Utterz to communicate between themselves and apart from being “stickybeak” fascinating, I can see that as a communication device it’s pretty cool.
I like Utterz best. Audio grabs of workers in the field – at earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. The Red Cross have pulled them into a blog.
But wait there’s more…
The other week I read an article in The Walkley Magazine talking about tweets and how some twitterers first heard of the Chinese earthquakes through twitter feeds.
“…Robert Scoble, perhaps the world’s leading Twit who claims to get a “tweet” every second of the day, claims he was getting messages about the Chinese earthquake from people in the region well before the news had broken in the mainstream media, and even before the United States Geological Survey, which provides early warnings of seismic events.”
“Breathing normal again. Feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun.” Twittered an office worker in Shanghai. [Walkley Magazine]
Maybe this little black duck will need to move with the times and investigate further.
Sigh. So much for simplifying my life.
Liz Strauss also did a post today about using social media for good http://www.successful-blog.com/1/the-real-world-social-media-heroes-list/ It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about & now two posts in one day… Of course, it makes perfect sense after reading about it.
I like intermittent twittering. I just struggle to get too enthused on a daily basis. I really like the idea of it, unfortunately my real life intrudes.
I was also amazed by twitter’s popularity and still don’t consider it a useful tool, although I’ve seen some cool stuff recently that can be done using twitter in combination with other services.
… and I did open an account with them myself.
I have opened accounts too but I honestly can’t see how people find the time to plurk and tweet .. real life has to take precedence here too…till the kids are old enough to open the fridge and make themselves lunch and pour a drink without trashing the place.
for those people getting frustrated / struggling to update their status on all the various social networking sites, try http://ping.fm/ – you can set it up to update all (or alternatively a selection) of your pages (eg. twitter, pownce, brightkite, facebook, myspace, plurk, linkedin, delicious etc) via the web page, IM, email.
(i’m not associated with ping.fm )
I too have all sorts of accounts all over the place.. and then i need something to remind me of all my details for these a/cs.. and something else to organize my bookmarks of all the a/cs … and keep track of all the new posts and cool stuff out there.. and sync my iphone.. and.. how oh how oh how are there enough hours in the day?
i’m constantly amazed by people who, when the subject of twitter is raised, roll their eyes and then proceed to inform everyone that they’ve been online for so long they can’t be bothered with gimmicks.
in my opinion, twitter and social networking in general are far from gimmicky. whilst others may not be yet convinced of their importance in the evolution of online trends, if nothing else, twitter serves as a useful tool (used in conjunction with things like RSS etc) to publicise and attract traffic to your own blog whether it be personal or commercial.