social networking and twitter

[Viv McWaters]

HI Raffi and others

I've been using Twitter for a couple of years now
(www.twitter.com/vivmcw) and before using it I could see no real
purpose. Now that I 'follow' the tweets (updates) of 100+ people (some
of whom I know - Hi Chris - and many that I don't) I can see real
benefits.

1. I work at home, mostly alone. Tweets are like the background hum
you would hear in an office. Most of it you ignore. Occasionally
there's something that interests me so I follow up

2. People post lots of links to articles, blogs etc that I would never
find otherwise.

3. It helps me feel closer and connected to the people I actually know who tweet

4. I can ask a question (especially a tech question) and nearly always
get an immediate response

5. Southern Australia is a long way from the rest of the world. Mostly
that's good. Twitter is an easy way for me to stay up-to-date with
global news (and, yes, I also read newspapers and am finding that they
are usually about 24 hours behind, but they do provide a lot more than
140 characters!)

6. Tweeting helps with my writing. The limit of 140 characters means I
have to choose my words carefully and can't rabbit on (like in this
email ;-)

7. I get to 'know' some new people through their tweets and learn of
some really cool ways of doing things (eg a woman here in Melbourne is
raising money for a micro-finance  scheme for women in the
Philippines, a company gave $100 per blog post about the project as
part of the fund raising effort. I learnt about this via her tweets)

And what annoys me about twitter?

1. It can be boring sometimes.

2. I get sick of so many tech people tweeting in shorthand tech
language that I don't understand - that's probably more of a
reflection of the main users of twitter and the people I follow - I
would LOVE to have a whole heap of OST people to follow.

Cheers

Viv



-- 
Viv McWaters
Beyond the Edge Pty Ltd
PO Box 665 Torquay Victoria 3228
Australia
+ 614 1713 5406

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