I know it seems rather strange at first. It takes a little while to figure out how to make it work for you. But it is making sense to me. There is some basic information about the service here: http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/13920
One may wonder how much influence can be contained in 140 character posts. In the following link one of the founders compares it to a flock of birds. Rudimentary communication and feedback has the power to move the masses! http://www.motherjones.com/media/2009/02/mojo-inte rview-biz-stone
Some use it to follow friends, family or celebrities. I use it to follow thought leaders of subjects I am interested in. By knowing what people are doing you can learn what they know. I read the articles they post and can share the links with the people that follow me.
One of the coolest features of Twitter is the search. Enter any terms and you can see exactly what people are posting about the subject right now. Some say this has the potential to be more powerful than Google because it takes time for valuable information to appear in Google search results. Whereas, Twitter is immediate. http://search.twitter.com/
Do not hesitate to contact me if I can help you out.
Heh. I took a look at Stealth's page... looks kind of like the "wall" on facebook these days.
I have facebook and myspace, as well as managing the pages for my band... and this place, as well as a Sportster forum I frequent. I don't know how much more social networking I can take, lol.
Facebook allows me to keep up with friends and family. But what my buddy ate for dinner is not extremely relevant. I find much more value in knowing what people are reading or researching.
Sorry - I don't see how it gives anything of value... Looks just like a bunch of one scentence nonsense, except I can search on a topic (like Buell) and see what yahoo wants to get one "'cause they're bad azz" or why the 1125 shouldn't be in supersport class.
I don't get it. But hey man, if you're into it, have at it. It took me forever to get into other tech stuff that's pretty much standard at this point.
My employer pays big bucks to a marketing trend watchdog company called Sphere. We just had our yearly heads-up presentation a week or so ago, and Twitter was at the top of their list. For personal use, yeah, pretty useless, but if a company is willing to invest time in it, it's supposed to be pretty sweet. It would be like having Court on duty 24-7.
Call my a luddite . . . but I simply don't have the time nor need to know where everyone is, that Suzy is standing in line at McDonald's or Fred flew home for the weekend.
One of the things I notice among my younger classmates at Columbia is that few read. Instead their (and I'm generalizing here) pretty much consists of scanning Google, Wikipedia or a similar source and reciting.
Even I, a construction worker, know that there is very little assimilation in such a process.
On the upside they also don't take notes at all well. I did quite well selling my notes (to 9 folks) when the Professor in my Master's Thesis class decided to assign a project. He mentioned that he noticed me frantically writing as many of my classmates "twittered" on their iPhones.
The world is changing. Most of it is good and useful but I think we, as individuals, need to assess how much time and benefit each thing conveys and allocate our resources. I've got some big plans for the next couple years and accordingly am quite protective of my time.
Just a thought.
Court
P.S. - funny story you folks would enjoy. My Master's Thesis concerned 287 Broadway and that the developed had been remiss in not implementing a well thought out vibration monitoring and control initiative during pile driving.
I turned the paper in at 6:00PM on Tuesday night and yesterday morning at 6:00AM the building two doors down collapsed.
I am surprised there are not more Twitter users on the BadWeB. Many of the users here are usually willing to test the waters.
It is a whole lot deeper than what such and such is doing. It is a new engine for communication. There was once a time when "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." seemed like a mundane waste of time. After all Bell was in the next room.
I so far have been able to avoid twitter. It is my little stand against progress.
Did anyone here read that study that said 60% of new twitters leave in the first month? With those numbers I can't image their so far non-existent business model will ever work out.
I have heard of Twitter but have not looked into it. However, as far as MySpace and Facebook goes, they are a big waste of time, to me. They remind of the AOL chat rooms from back in the 90's - a whole lot of people in one place chatting about absolutely nothing. At least here on the BadWeb useful information or ideas are exchanged which helps me to overcome the feeling I'm wasting my time. I dunno, maybe when you're younger you think you have all the time in the world but as you get older you realize life is too short to spend in chat rooms or on social network sites typing comments such as "umm Sasha iz da 1 nd onlii wifey.so hop off lolz" and "how yu doin today?"
That could be a problem as the speech I am working on, for May 20th, is on "Change, Values and Technology". Somehow, in an odd twist of fate, out of 10 candidates I was selected to speak at the Columbia University 225th Commencement .