The Value of Twitter?
Another post, another list, but I wanted to clarify my thoughts on Twitter and its value to me, perhaps to you, and maybe to everybody …
- Keeping me informed I’ve been twittering for a while now and the rolling status updates have kept me more informed than I have ever been: I’d no idea that the Deathly Hallows is to be filmed in two halves, nor that recently Stephen Fry was out in the Far East. Nor had I caught the rumours about the new Apple Netbook killer with its 10″ screen. All of these snippets I now know about because of twitter.
- It makes the net more intimate I also know when @rainboweffect is having a good day in Sunny Argyll (it is sunny, more often than you think) …
- And useful … or when social media type things are going on in Glasgae because @wodieskodie let’s me know. Not only that but my friend @waveydavie tends to let me know when I inadvertently get things wrong on the technical front … (btw, the link for waveydavie’s name came from Zemanta … now that’s impressive!)
- It saves me (so much) time … and indeed @buddypress and @wordpress keep me updated on the techie latest from the important OS networks in America. Twitter has already proved itself an invaluable interlocutor in my life (when I remember to launch Nambu that is) between full-length media items and my short attention span (and it is short because there’s a lot out there and I have a lot to do onscreen other than consume).
- Protecting me from crap As a shield it works extremely well because there are twitterers who aren’t worth the candle — for example there’s one bloke who simply quotes other people’s bon mots about mens’ relationships with women. Tedious. There are others who are out and out spammers: I’ve unfollowed the lot of them — that is if I didn’t spot their unworthiness beforehand. Such a relief in comparison with Email — when they have your email address, that’s it!
- Making my online presence work harder Twitter is a champion for me (and it’s champion!): I can send direct messages to folk who I am following, like, for example, Stephen Fry when he was at the Digital Britain conference last week (I asked him to mention the ruinous state of rural broadband and the need for UK-wide superfast connectivity — whether he did or not is another matter). It also publishes links to all the posts I write (via RSS and some technical jiggery-pokery) and that draws some traffic in) as well as encouraging me to make direct comment on what I am doing at the moment.
- Makes value out of the quotidian This of course is the traditional media’s big bug-bear with the Tweet-gen, that we don’t necessarily want to know who is changing a child’s nappy or picking his or her nose, but there is value in it, especially if you use filters. As an example let us take the everyday example of an electricity cut. Via Twitter I learned that the entire West Coast had been knocked out by a troublesome sub-station on the outskirts of Glasgow. A classic twitter moment (thank crikey I had enough charge in the laptop and my old 0845 dial-up account to hand otherwise I would still be on hold). This, and more famous moments caught in 140 character stereophonic brevity, show the site’s real value, which is as an unfiltered, unedited take on the moment, the Now.
- The Now is the crucial value: being in it, focussing on it, reporting it and being reminded of it everytime I use it. That’s Twitter’s real value, enjoying your journey while enjoying everyone else’s (without all those silly f-ing applications on FB).
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April 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 pm
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