I know... from now on when people say give it a bash, and I give it a bash and I can't figure out why, then I have to work on it again and again until I figure it out. This is my lesson to learn. You MUST read this Time article by Steven Johnson - How Twitter will change the way we live. Now don't be lazy. Focus on what he says about that conference, and pretend that we, you me and our groepie are a conference, let's call our conference 'Facebook', or 'South Africa', or other things we have in common.
Why do you read my status updates? Same reason you should read my tweets. In fact, Facebook and Twitter and Google have all got their eye on the statuses. You can be patient and wait, they will probably become one. But Twitter is for those statuses that want to stream out into the world, that don't want to be confined. That want to be Clouded, Tagged and Aggregated. So that people can see patterns in what we are talking about.
Come play. It's never fun alone. That's what I initially didn't like Twitter, because it's not very social networky if your friends don't join in and at least tweet once a day.
Find a fanatic. One of my favorite pastimes is hunting for fanatics. They always know a lot about the thing they know about because they are invested in it, are passionate about it. And if that thing is something I am into, well, they have a wake and I shall ride it. Twitter has a bunch of strangers, fanatics some, and if there are no friends playing, then the fanatics will play.
Blocking. This is good stuff. Block boring people. Because you can, then people feel the pressure to improve the quality of their tweets. And just like on Facebook the Swingers stick together and post pictures of their naked orgies on Facebook, so do Tweeters stick together. We get to decide who to block, not the officious officials.
Tagging. This has improved the whole Twitter thing. You put a hash sign in front of something and then others can do that too and it becomes something easily searchable - I have started a few (tip: first search them so that you can see if you are doing the right thing). Stop Crime Say Hello is a campaign already running and I think it's something simple that we can do, so I started #stopcrimesayhello so that we can see if people pick up on it and start a 'sardinerun'. It would be lekker if people jumped on the bandwagon - make suggestions about crime stopping, suggest actions. Twitter's useable to monitor how people are thinking, what are they doing.
@ing. If you say @fetsiboomsticks then I can filter the tweets and see what tweets were directed at me directly and answer them directly. Makes it more relevant to you personally.
Twitpic. Can post pictures that are worth 1000 words. Instead of saying it, picture it.
Trends. Find out what people are thinking about. Passively, just look and see what the top 10 or so are, or search for words and see what people are saying about the things you are thinking about.
Twitionary. On the right of your twitter home page tells you all the things you need to know about the twitverse.
Applications. Another thing I love is the proliferation of cute apps around the latest media to catch the public's eye. Tweetie and Twitterrific are the two iPhone Twitter apps and comparing them and seeing what they offer to differentiate themselves from each other is interesting. It keeps the app makers on their toes, stimulates a genuine attempt to offer user-beneficial experiences. And that product stimulation stimulates other products to think the same way and overall I believe the efforts result in a delivery of excellence. Love that!
If you can think of other things... let me know, please.
Why do you read my status updates? Same reason you should read my tweets. In fact, Facebook and Twitter and Google have all got their eye on the statuses. You can be patient and wait, they will probably become one. But Twitter is for those statuses that want to stream out into the world, that don't want to be confined. That want to be Clouded, Tagged and Aggregated. So that people can see patterns in what we are talking about.
Come play. It's never fun alone. That's what I initially didn't like Twitter, because it's not very social networky if your friends don't join in and at least tweet once a day.
Find a fanatic. One of my favorite pastimes is hunting for fanatics. They always know a lot about the thing they know about because they are invested in it, are passionate about it. And if that thing is something I am into, well, they have a wake and I shall ride it. Twitter has a bunch of strangers, fanatics some, and if there are no friends playing, then the fanatics will play.
Blocking. This is good stuff. Block boring people. Because you can, then people feel the pressure to improve the quality of their tweets. And just like on Facebook the Swingers stick together and post pictures of their naked orgies on Facebook, so do Tweeters stick together. We get to decide who to block, not the officious officials.
Tagging. This has improved the whole Twitter thing. You put a hash sign in front of something and then others can do that too and it becomes something easily searchable - I have started a few (tip: first search them so that you can see if you are doing the right thing). Stop Crime Say Hello is a campaign already running and I think it's something simple that we can do, so I started #stopcrimesayhello so that we can see if people pick up on it and start a 'sardinerun'. It would be lekker if people jumped on the bandwagon - make suggestions about crime stopping, suggest actions. Twitter's useable to monitor how people are thinking, what are they doing.
@ing. If you say @fetsiboomsticks then I can filter the tweets and see what tweets were directed at me directly and answer them directly. Makes it more relevant to you personally.
Twitpic. Can post pictures that are worth 1000 words. Instead of saying it, picture it.
Trends. Find out what people are thinking about. Passively, just look and see what the top 10 or so are, or search for words and see what people are saying about the things you are thinking about.
Twitionary. On the right of your twitter home page tells you all the things you need to know about the twitverse.
Applications. Another thing I love is the proliferation of cute apps around the latest media to catch the public's eye. Tweetie and Twitterrific are the two iPhone Twitter apps and comparing them and seeing what they offer to differentiate themselves from each other is interesting. It keeps the app makers on their toes, stimulates a genuine attempt to offer user-beneficial experiences. And that product stimulation stimulates other products to think the same way and overall I believe the efforts result in a delivery of excellence. Love that!
If you can think of other things... let me know, please.
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