Twitter

I know every man and his dog has blogged about Twitter by now but I just want to do a quick post with my thoughts on the hottest Web 2.0 topic of the moment.

I took a while to get in to Twitter. I’d tried  a few times but thought it was boring, pointless and vain and then around November 2008 I finally got it 🙂 I saw the potential within Twitter for increasing/creating business contacts as well as discovering and learning about new things-and that’s how I use it.

You may have seen my “Windows 7 Diary” on the MS Technet letter a few weeks back…I found out about that through Twitter. I’ve got the Royal Institute Xmas Lectures on DVD…got that through Twitter. Got an early invite to Spotify…through Twitter. There are plenty more. too. It’s also great for connecting with people for work (I follow, and am followed by, a number of MS people) and strengthening relationships etc. For things like this I think Twitter is great and invaluable but there are 2 things I don’t get at all:

1) Following “celebs” for the sake of it. These can be media celebs such as Stephen Fry, Wossy, Russell Brand, Lily Allen and the 100’s others and/or “web celebs” such as Scobelizer, Loic etc. I follow Mr Fry as his tweets are for the most part interesting and pertinent while most, if not all, other celebs are amazingly bland and boring; however they still have 1000’s/10,000’s of followers for no real reason. I found particularly “Wossy” was very boiring and irritating!

2) Tweeting about what you’re doing: doesn’t that mean you’re not doing it?! I often see tweets such as “Am having lovely meal with family-great night”…really? If it’s that good why have you got your phone out and started Tweeting? Surely if it was that good, you’d be too busy enjoying yourself?! Another one you see is “Am really enjoying being with the kids”…do the kids really enjoy watching you type?!

I don’t want to sound too militant about it but certainly number 2 really strikes me as being odd! That said it’s each to their own and Twitter is great 😉