Twitter is a really interesting social media phenomenon. My friend Wayne Hodgins has told me that he thinks Twitter is going to be a transformational technology, offering a completely new arena for integrated communication - my words, not his, I refer you to his great blog, Off Course, On Target for his words on this and many other interesting subjects.
It is Wayne's interest in Twitter that got me to take a look and try it out. I'm finding that the more I use it, the more I like it. Twitter is all about microblogging - using posts of 140 characters or less to communicate with people that have chosen to subscribe to your various missives. I've seen a number of references that talk about micro-blogging as a channel for "snackable content": digital content that is easy to produce, easy to consume in little bits, and easy to "munch", lots of times during the day. Yum.
In Twitter-speak, each individual post is known as a tweet. If you need a way to sort your tweets, you might want an application such as Tweetdeck, an AIR app that sorts your tweets into more manageable feeds so you can keep track those you follow, those that follow you, and the things that everyone says to one another. If you want to refer people to an online article but the url takes up your whole 140 characters, plus, then you need a url-shortening service like tinyurl. If you want to post a photo you need use a photo service such as TwitPic. People who subscribe to posts coming from a particular person are knows as followers. Those of us who tweet sometimes finding ourselves asking our friends to follow us.
Yes...is IS like speaking a different language.
Why would someone choose to receive these little microblog posts all day, all the time? Well in some cases it a nice way to stay in touch with what friends are doing. Wayne, mentioned above, is in the midst of sailing around the world. I've loved being able to keep track of where he is, get links to googlemaps, see his pictures, stuff like that. And, as I mentioned before, he always gets me to think about things in new and different ways. While many of his tweets are sailing-related there are always info-gems scattered throughout. You can follow him at twitter.com/WWWayne
It's also a great way to see the kinds of things that capture the attention of people I respect in the industry. For example, I am a follower of Etay Gafni. It's fun to see what he is thinking about with regard to new Internet innovations. Tweets from Etay are precise, funny, insightful, original and offer links to other great sites. You can follow Etay at twitter.com/etaygafni
I also follow Anne Derryberry from Imserious.net. Her insights about designing purpose driven games have been eye-opening. You can subscribe to her blog at www.imserious.net and follow her at twitter.com/aderryberry
One of the things I have come to appreciate the most about microblogging is that it gives me a way to sip from the unrelenting fire-hose of information that continually knocks me over and rolls me down the street. This is an easy, straightforward and not-very-time-consuming way to see what people I trust are interested in and what they are talking about. Sounds like lots of wins to me.
(oh, by the way...you can follow me at twitter.com/edwsonoma )
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