Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Confessions of a Twit(terer)
My tweeting started less than two months ago. I took the plunge because, like George Bernhard Shaw said, one should try everything in life once, except buggery and country dancing (look it up).
At the start, enthusiastic friends already using Twitter were evangelizing the service to the point where I wondered: is this addictive? After some 130-ish "tweets" since late December, and reading at least 100x as many from my contacts, I know the answer. Yes, but maybe not forever.
Despite the hype, Twitter is still flying below the radar for 99 percent of people who use the 'net. And that's what makes it so special at the moment. I wonder how long it will stay that way. I'm seeing various tweets about spammers being kicked off the service, plus various ham-fisted trumpet-blowing by some companies that have not really understood what Twitter is all about.
Despite all this background noise, there are today a few undisputed Stars of Twitter. Take a bow Stephen Fry, whose followers have increased from 80,000 to 110,000 in the space of a week. He's still got a long way to go to eclipse Barack Obama, perhaps the most-famous Twitter user of our times (so far), but he will - and fast. At the current growth rate alone, Fry will be the world's top Twitterer by the end of March.
Who? I hear non-Brits asking? well, tune in to his Twitter feed and you'll get the idea. Here's why: Stephen Fry is the rising star on Twitter for being himself.
That's part of the charm. I honestly feel that I've gotten to know the people I'm following a little better since early December. And that's also odd since I don't actually know at least half of them in real life aka meatspace. I've tuned in because they're on the "friend" list for other people I'm following, and so on.
If you checked out Twitter but then looked away around a year to 18 months or so ago, when it was competing with Dodgeball and based on SMS-ing, it is time to look again. I remember doing the same thing - and doubting that it was worth the cost of sending multiple SMSes to update folks on the minutae of my life.
Things have changed. Today I'm Tweeting via TweekDeck on PC and TwitterBerry on mobile. Both are super-easy to use and keep me up-to-date with my friend-cloud. Best of all is that I'm pulling info - dipping into the "tweam" of information - as and when I feel like it. It IS addictive though!
Looking for some stats to convince yourself that Twitter is the 2009 internet phenomenon? Plenty of places to look. Try Twitscoop, Retweetradar, and Cursebird for a start. These are among the mushroom cloud of Web 2.0 /mashup sites feeding off raw info from the Twitter API to produce information that ranges from the totally fascinating to the completely useless: maybe both at the same time. I found all three via recommendations from my Twitterfriends.
Doubting the real-world effect of Twitter? Today a tweet by Stephen Fry is said to have brought down a website, thanks to the sheer volume of followers who then tried to click through on his recommendation. I know that just one silly old website isn't a Government, but even so, Twitter has virtualized the flash mob.
Wondering how to tweet? Well, in your own style. Drop the "is ?" and try and add some useful or meaningful information. A weblink helps. My reaction to your tweet should not be "so what?". And I am not going to DM (direct message) you on Twitter for more info ? if you have something to say, say it, and say it in under 140 characters. Actually, in under 70 if you can ... this is a couple of lines on TweetDeck.
My personal Twitter style has already changed since my first tweet on 6th December. It wasn't "hello world" but "C&C on a wintry day / bulk buying frenzy / impulse shopping by the kilo", when I was thinking that twittering in Haikus would be fun. Maybe it would, but to do a real Haiku was too darn hard. My last Haiku-tweet was six days later. Those weather references were getting boring: It was a cold, but still wintry day today, almost two months later. Yawn.
I have also tried to stop posting meaningless stuff like my Jan 13th "Hmmm, an unexpected traffic jam" because unless you know where I was at the time (and there were no clues), it doesn't help. Since then I've added 12seconds.tv ? 12 seconds of tv ? anytime, anywhere ? and today also Latitude from Google, although not sure if I'll be using it. Maybe you should tweet @MrNesjo in 90 days or so for an update. Or look me up on Latitide. Might see you there.
At the start, enthusiastic friends already using Twitter were evangelizing the service to the point where I wondered: is this addictive? After some 130-ish "tweets" since late December, and reading at least 100x as many from my contacts, I know the answer. Yes, but maybe not forever.
Despite the hype, Twitter is still flying below the radar for 99 percent of people who use the 'net. And that's what makes it so special at the moment. I wonder how long it will stay that way. I'm seeing various tweets about spammers being kicked off the service, plus various ham-fisted trumpet-blowing by some companies that have not really understood what Twitter is all about.
Despite all this background noise, there are today a few undisputed Stars of Twitter. Take a bow Stephen Fry, whose followers have increased from 80,000 to 110,000 in the space of a week. He's still got a long way to go to eclipse Barack Obama, perhaps the most-famous Twitter user of our times (so far), but he will - and fast. At the current growth rate alone, Fry will be the world's top Twitterer by the end of March.
Who? I hear non-Brits asking? well, tune in to his Twitter feed and you'll get the idea. Here's why: Stephen Fry is the rising star on Twitter for being himself.
That's part of the charm. I honestly feel that I've gotten to know the people I'm following a little better since early December. And that's also odd since I don't actually know at least half of them in real life aka meatspace. I've tuned in because they're on the "friend" list for other people I'm following, and so on.
If you checked out Twitter but then looked away around a year to 18 months or so ago, when it was competing with Dodgeball and based on SMS-ing, it is time to look again. I remember doing the same thing - and doubting that it was worth the cost of sending multiple SMSes to update folks on the minutae of my life.
Things have changed. Today I'm Tweeting via TweekDeck on PC and TwitterBerry on mobile. Both are super-easy to use and keep me up-to-date with my friend-cloud. Best of all is that I'm pulling info - dipping into the "tweam" of information - as and when I feel like it. It IS addictive though!
Looking for some stats to convince yourself that Twitter is the 2009 internet phenomenon? Plenty of places to look. Try Twitscoop, Retweetradar, and Cursebird for a start. These are among the mushroom cloud of Web 2.0 /mashup sites feeding off raw info from the Twitter API to produce information that ranges from the totally fascinating to the completely useless: maybe both at the same time. I found all three via recommendations from my Twitterfriends.
Doubting the real-world effect of Twitter? Today a tweet by Stephen Fry is said to have brought down a website, thanks to the sheer volume of followers who then tried to click through on his recommendation. I know that just one silly old website isn't a Government, but even so, Twitter has virtualized the flash mob.
Wondering how to tweet? Well, in your own style. Drop the "is ?" and try and add some useful or meaningful information. A weblink helps. My reaction to your tweet should not be "so what?". And I am not going to DM (direct message) you on Twitter for more info ? if you have something to say, say it, and say it in under 140 characters. Actually, in under 70 if you can ... this is a couple of lines on TweetDeck.
My personal Twitter style has already changed since my first tweet on 6th December. It wasn't "hello world" but "C&C on a wintry day / bulk buying frenzy / impulse shopping by the kilo", when I was thinking that twittering in Haikus would be fun. Maybe it would, but to do a real Haiku was too darn hard. My last Haiku-tweet was six days later. Those weather references were getting boring: It was a cold, but still wintry day today, almost two months later. Yawn.
I have also tried to stop posting meaningless stuff like my Jan 13th "Hmmm, an unexpected traffic jam" because unless you know where I was at the time (and there were no clues), it doesn't help. Since then I've added 12seconds.tv ? 12 seconds of tv ? anytime, anywhere ? and today also Latitude from Google, although not sure if I'll be using it. Maybe you should tweet @MrNesjo in 90 days or so for an update. Or look me up on Latitide. Might see you there.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]