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In my world, things would be simpler than this...

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Twittering

I am on the verge of Twittering. I still don't get it and the more "I just swatted a fly" tweets I see on there the less I get it. But I have this sort of itch that says *unless* I try it I just wont get it. And unless I try it I may be missing out on something special, some sort of communications revolution. Yet something still holds me back.

A big part of my job is communications; trying to connect with lots of different people in lots of different ways. Maybe they see me at an event. Maybe they stop and have a chat. Maybe they drop me a mail (mike dot ormond at microsoft dot com). Maybe they watch a screencast. Maybe they read this blog.

But much of that communication tends to be a "broadcast" and not necessarily conducive to conversation. That's frustrating (for me at least). Does Twitter help in this regard? If I resist the temptation to tweet about the humdrum of everyday life (yesterday you could have read about the bad smell I noticed upstairs, followed by a gruesome mouse discovery under the bed (the cat has a lot to answer for) and the stomach-churning disposal process that followed - I guess in Twitter that could be 3 or 4 graphic instalments as I moved from phase to phase). If I resist that, does it offer a new channel to express myself and more importantly, to connect to people?

I know I'm not the first to perch on the fence but I'm undecided. Maybe tomorrow I'll take the plunge...

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Posted: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 4:03 PM by MikeOrmond

Comments

a-foton » Twittering said:

PingBack from http://blog.a-foton.ru/2008/07/twittering/

# July 16, 2008 11:43 AM

Thomas M said:

It sounds as if twitter would be ideal for you, connecting in a non-personal way with lots of different people. It has been said that if Twitter were to be compared to IP comms, it would be UDP instead of TCP because not every message has be responded to nor even read if you don't want to. This fits well with your broadcast requirement.

I think if you join it you will see it as a great way to connect with people who you know, people you don't know and people who you want to know.

# July 16, 2008 11:44 AM

Derek Lakin said:

Like you, I'm still not seeing the benefit of Twitter (to me personally anyway). I see it as still being a broadcast communication system, but with random people occasionally replying and not necessarily on-topic, which doesn't strike me as being any more personal.

I'm still in favour of blogs as a great form of communication. Yes, they're still broadcast, but people can leave comments, I can track pingbacks and see if anyone's talking about the same thing. The difficulty I have with meaningful conversations in blogging is that it can be difficult to track the conversation. It's fine if you're the author because you (typically) get notified whenever someone leaves a comment, but for the people leaving the comments, they've either got to keep checking back (not a good way to hold a conversation) or subscribe to a comments feed, which not all blogs support, and if they do it may be an "all comments" feed, which then means you're left listening to the noise on other conversations you're not interested in!

We can always resort to the tried and tested email conversation, but then that conversation isn't shared with everyone else, which is kinda why we blogged in the first place :P

Maybe one day there will be a good solution, but right now, I don't think Twitter is it. I'd be interested to see what you think after a while if you do try it.

# July 17, 2008 3:38 AM

Eric Nelson said:

Oddly enough Mike - I started yesterday.

# July 18, 2008 3:10 AM

MikeOrmond said:

Just gone there to sign up and got "Twitter is currently down for maintenance". Maybe this is fate... :-)

# July 18, 2008 3:41 AM

Alan said:

I signed up for a twitter account due to the number of raves I've heard about it-then thought I don't get it either and then haven't bothered with it.

You can only have 160 character messages and your supposed to say what your doing. Looking at some of them, "at work", "at the pub", "at football" etc-ideal website for criminals if they know where you live.

# July 18, 2008 10:12 AM

Colin Angus Mackay said:

I have to say that I didn't initially get it either. However, I've now been twittering for a few months now and it is really quite useful.  Sure there are the odd "I'm at Heathrow" tweets, but often they are conversation starters. And if you are concerned about privacy you can protect your tweets and only permit people you select to see them (I've done that).

Some people also tweet when they've added a blog entry which I find useful as I've not yet found an RSS reader that I like, so I tend to view people's blogs on an intermitted schedule.

All I can say is give it a go. Sign up, find some people you know and see if it works for you. I'm @ColinMackay, by the way.

Oh! And don't do what Daniel Moth did. He signed up and had it as one way communication only - no interaction.

# July 19, 2008 4:25 PM
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