social networking and twitter

[Heidi Nobantu Saul]

Viv, John, Chris and others who have shared,

Many Thanks! - I appreciate the sharing about what connecting in this/these
on line ways does for you personally and what it can mean collectively. You
all are more clear and persuasive than Scott Simon was while exploring it
recently on an NPR Saturday morning or a Charlie Rose conversation with Evan
Williams the co-founder of Twitter. They should hire y'all to
market/advertise their product. 

I have had a twitter account for several months now, set up for me by
colleague Kaliya. I have yet to 'tweet' and do not look at my account with
any regularity.  I am ready to dive into the stream now - or at least sit
next to the edge.

Heidi

Heidi Nobantu Saul
heidi at nobantu.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/nobantu 




-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Viv
McWaters
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 1:45 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: social networking and twitter

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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