I love twitter, I use it for friends, family, work and fun. What I love most about twitter, is how I think its brought our community much closer together, our Northern Group (Geekup, NorthHub, Local Usergroups) have come on a lot stronger over the past few months and I firmly believe a big hand in that goes to twitter.
I use twitter as everything
- A Microblog
- A Communication Device
- A Means of introduction
- A News Service
- A “whats going on” calendar
I can be in Manchester for the afternoon and ask if anyones free for lunch, within 10 minutes I could have 5 replies.
I can have a problem with some php code or javascript, I can post the url and pretty much instantly someones replied with your an idiot and mentioned my missing semi colon
I can see who’s attending a specific event or when tickets for the next barcamp are available and the race to get them is on, I can even direct message someone to pick me up one.
Theres a tonne of possibilities and its because Twitter isn’t as formal as email, isn’t as in your face as instant messaging and can be turned off for a day or so without any major mishap, you don’t usually go away for a weekend and come back to 1,000 twitters that you have to go through, you just check your replies and direct messages and bugger the rest. its the one thing they’ve done great, they’ve created an IM / Email Hybrid that just…works…(most of the time)
Recently at BarCampLeeds, I met a lot of people who I’d spoken to and I follow on twitter, a few of those I had built up a good friendship with without even knowing them, knowing there name or sometimes knowing what they look like (apart from an avatar).
So I can ignore the downtime, I’m not too bothered about losing text messages and I don’t even miss the jabber API that much, Thank you Twitter folks and Thank You Followers and people I follow.
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Agree, and for folks like me who type faster than their thumbs let them text, its a simple way to maintain a ‘loose’ contact with the few people who count. Especially those who frequently let their phone batteries run down (you know who I mean!). I find the character limit also aids creative literary posts.
The nice thing about the limit is if you’re going over it you’re saying too much. There’s never anything lengthy to read, which is the beauty of it, but you can still get great conversations from it.
I’m certainly finding it more beneficial, and fun, than sitting on IM all day.
Its because its powered by GRAVY!
As you say, you feel like you get to know people – it’s very intimate.