I am beginning to feel a little left out. I still haven't managed to "get" Twitter. I know I ought to throw myself into it to be able to really benefit. But I can't. It just seems to demand too much time. And I can't just leave it on in the background as it starts to annoy me like a television left on in a room when you are having an interesting conversation.
I like RSS. I like the fact that I can make time to read things that I am interested in without extraneous noise.
Occasionally I'll spot something go by on the Twitter Gadget on my iGoogle home page and follow the link. But generally I go to Reader first. I like the more considered pieces rather than the instantaneous.
I will accept that Twitter is good for asking questions that are not answered by search engines.
Maybe it's me. But Twitter just strikes me as too needy...
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Here's what worked for me, as advised by a friend:
Follow 25-30 people - pick those that you know, or those in a certain area of expertise.
Watch & listen for a while.
You will start to see patterns.
Figure out what these patterns mean and how Twitter can help you - it could be as an adjunct to your blog, stuff that doesn't go on your blog, as a search engine, a way to keep in touch with colleagues in your field, etc.
Twitter is different things for different people - there is no singular way to use it - similar to blogging in this way.
Although I can't stand it - I think it is the techno-mongrel of Chinese Whispers and ADHD - I think Marshall McLuhan hit on something with his 'medium is the message' line...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
Thank you Harold. Although I have to say having read your "Friday finds" for some time, I just get the sense that you have managed to carve out time for twitter in a better way than I can.
Nonetheless I will follow your advice.
H
Hallo Hugh,
how's it going?
even if you don't fancy twitter much (which is fine), there are lots of things that twitter is good for telling you that you otherwise wouldn't have found out about, or found out about so quickly...or just that you need a twitter account to do..like echobazaar - very moreish echobazaar.failbettergames.com/
rather than just feeling overwhelmed by rubbish use something like twitscoop.com to digest twitter trends and news stuff
also it's not facebook or linkedin - you can follow and unfollow people as you wish, there are no consequences. I like to be choosy and feel no compunction unfollowing narcissistic dullards.
depending on how you want to use twittter, there's usually an application/lens through which it will be easier to digest
see you soon ..
..Julia
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