Twitter

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[Riayn]

Just wondering if anyone here uses Twitter.

My twittering can be found here.

I must admit I enjoy the challenge of microblogging.

[scotty]

I have been using Twitter for about a year now, and my new year resolution actually includes "getting rid of Twitter" as it is really distracting following other people's conversation.

It is a great platform though for pushing out latest updates so those who follow with IM/SMS notification can be notified instantly. I am using it with one of my website so followers can track the latest deals people posted (I saw you subscribed to Zazz so you might be interested in this).

[Lani]

To be honest, I've never even looked at it.  I'm a bit resistant to signing up for yet another thing.  I know that I would just feel burdened by yet another "responsibility".  I'm just now learning to forgive myself if I can't find the time to write every day.  Social media, in all it's forms seems like so much work, even if there are benefits to my blog.

I think that's one of the reasons I love blogging, as opposed to connecting with people on Facebook or something.  I can control my own space.

[macgirvin]

If you want your entire life to be on display, by all means twitter away. I find it kind of pointless to provide this level of detail to folks that really don't give a shirt anyway and often only follow your blog once a week.

30 seconds ago I was sitting on the toilet. 5 minutes ago I was telling my daughter to go to bed (again).

Sorry but this just doesn't cut it, and this is from somebody who once installed a webcam in the bathroom.  You soon discover that the people watching your every move aren't your friends and many are downright spooky. However I did blog recently about using twitter for guerrilla art and performance:

30 seconds ago - this is why you don't buy Chinese detonators
5 minutes ago - luckily we got past airport security
2 hours ago - 4 bottles of vodka and 60 sleeping pills. Oops...

[Mike]

Just wondering if anyone here uses Twitter.

Sure do!  I don't post nearly as frequently as some of the people I'm following though.  In fact I've had to turn notifications off for several people because my messenger goes bonkers some of the time.  This is one of the slippery points of the site for me, it's all too easy to get sucked in trying to keep up with the banter and never get anything finished.

It's like RSS on speed if you're following a bunch of active people.

I do find it useful in that I'm constantly coming up with short thoughts I'd like to share that aren't worth an entire blog post.

I can be found here: http://twitter.com/mbogle

[Snoskred]

30 seconds ago I was sitting on the toilet.

You don't have a desire to announce your bathroom breaks to the world?  I think that is a bit of an Aussie thing from back in the days they had outhouses, in case you went out there and got eaten by a snake or attacked by a spider.. You had to let people know you were going, in case you didn't return and they needed to send out a search party 

I have never embraced the art of twittering. I just don't have the time to do everything I want to do as it is, let alone microblogging.. 

[goatlady]

I use Twitter, but I think a lot of people don't understand the real value of it. As someone who works from a home office, I find that having my immediate friends and colleagues on Twitter is like working in a building with all of those people. You might bump into them at the water cooler or in the elevator and have 30 second conversations - enough to know that they've seen a good movie or they're really stressed out with a big deadline or they excited about an upcoming event or their dog is sick. Twitter gives me a general feeling of connectedness with my friends - regardless of whether they work across town or across the country or across the world. Of the 100 or so people I follow, only about half are active (posting more than once per day) and i don't feel the need to catch up on posts I miss, mostly.

[FormerAdmin]

I use Twitter, but I think a lot of people don't understand the real value of it. As someone who works from a home office, I find that having my immediate friends and colleagues on Twitter is like working in a building with all of those people. You might bump into them at the water cooler or in the elevator and have 30 second conversations - enough to know that they've seen a good movie or they're really stressed out with a big deadline or they excited about an upcoming event or their dog is sick. Twitter gives me a general feeling of connectedness with my friends - regardless of whether they work across town or across the country or across the world. Of the 100 or so people I follow, only about half are active (posting more than once per day) and i don't feel the need to catch up on posts I miss, mostly.

Hi goatlady,

I'm much the same (although I do have a day office plus several client sites, but do a lot of work at home too). The connectedness is important.

I'm http://twitter.com/facibus.

Cheers, Andrew

[clutterbells]

I am hot and cold on twitter and it is definitely one of the first things to be dropped when I am busy. I have a widget on my blog. Not a devotee, but happy to fiddle with it from time to time.

[Riayn]

If you want your entire life to be on display, by all means twitter away. I find it kind of pointless to provide this level of detail to folks that really don't give a shirt anyway and often only follow your blog once a week.

30 seconds ago I was sitting on the toilet. 5 minutes ago I was telling my daughter to go to bed (again).

Sorry but this just doesn't cut it, and this is from somebody who once installed a webcam in the bathroom.  You soon discover that the people watching your every move aren't your friends and many are downright spooky. However I did blog recently about using twitter for guerrilla art and performance:

30 seconds ago - this is why you don't buy Chinese detonators
5 minutes ago - luckily we got past airport security
2 hours ago - 4 bottles of vodka and 60 sleeping pills. Oops...

You don't have to Twitter everything you do.   There are a lot of people out there that do, but I use Twitter to catch up with friends and document tiny events in my life that probably would not extend to a full blog post.  I find Twitter has a completely different audience to my blog.  My twitter list is only made up of my friends, whilst my blog is open to the entire world.  You can also 'lock down' Twitter so that only people you have got on your friends lists can read your entries.
I find it a fun little gadget.  It is not something I use every single day though.

[kathiemt]

I think I'm finally getting how to use this!  I thought it was drivel too and I couldn't understand why so many people would want to follow me at this place when I didn't know how to use and would forget to go and post there for days or weeks anyway.

Today I discovered http://www.twitterfeed.com  You need to create an openID account first and I did this with http://myvidoop.com.  I'm feeling my way as I've not done any of this before but I'm getting there.  I've just noticed a couple of hours later that my Twitter has now updated with feeds from my blogs - cool!  And it means that followers are getting something worthwhile and hopefully will follow the links back to my blogs instead. I've added 9 of my blogs so far (I know, I know, sic, huh?!)

[Ben Barden]

While I'm not an active user of Twitter, I'd like to defend Twitter against the following criticism:

If you want your entire life to be on display, by all means twitter away. I find it kind of pointless to provide this level of detail to folks that really don't give a shirt anyway and often only follow your blog once a week.

30 seconds ago I was sitting on the toilet. 5 minutes ago I was telling my daughter to go to bed (again).

Sorry but this just doesn't cut it, and this is from somebody who once installed a webcam in the bathroom.  You soon discover that the people watching your every move aren't your friends and many are downright spooky. However I did blog recently about using twitter for guerrilla art and performance:

30 seconds ago - this is why you don't buy Chinese detonators
5 minutes ago - luckily we got past airport security
2 hours ago - 4 bottles of vodka and 60 sleeping pills. Oops...

I wrote a post about this: http://www.benbarden.com/view.php/article/1089/comparing-twitter-and-blogging

The basic message is this: I've heard people saying exactly what you said about Twitter, but about blogging.  Blogging doesn't have to be about blow-by-blow details of every tiny thing you do, so why should Twitter be any different?  Yes, it is more immediate, but as with anything it's all about HOW you use it.

[Kelley]

I personally love Twitter.

I only follow (and allow follows) of people I know.  Most of the tweets are hilarious little snippets of life.  No toilet announcements yet.

It is all about the people you share with.  I have had a couple of people that I had to say look sorry can't handle this anymore cause they were tweeting their latest blog posts CONSTANTLY.  That is annoying.  But for the most part it is fabulous!

[Jaycee]

I very recently started using twitter - - to see if I like it. So far it's been ok. Don't know if I'll continue using it but I've included my tweets in my blog also.

I've already dropped one person I was following because it was just blog post and other feeds which annoyed me as I'm subscribed to their blog anyway so I didn't need another dose. I think it's more useful for the little personal stuff that doesn't warrant a whole blog post.

[Mistress B]

I still don't feel inclined to use this too - just another thing to divide my time between. 

[Sueblimely]

My life is pretty mundane so I rarely have anything to tweet about  - I do enjoy replying to others though.  I do post my blog posts but they are not frequent enough to bother people much I don't think. If I get excited about something I have found online I will post the url too but it has to be something I think of interest to my followers.

I seem to have had an upsurge in those following me lately - has anyone else noticed this? As it cannot be for my fascinating tweets I reckon it must be because people are using it more to get themselves, their blogs or their affiliate links known.

[ummyasmin]

I only just installed it. Before-hand I couldn't see much of a point, but I thouht I'd give it a go. I don't use it very much (so far) as I feel constrained by the word limit. It just strikes me as another type of ICQ / IM. It's kinda the innish thing at the moment, so I've put a widget for it on my blog. We'll see.