07 Feb09

Topics:Arb Thoughts 

Twitter - is this just another passing fad or is it brilliance in 140 Characters? I first found out about it on Rands website here I think. So being curious and having built up trust based on his writings, findings, opinions, observations, etc, I clicked on the link and tried to figure out how it would add value to my life.

Was this another social network that'll die. Is it just Facebook status messages on steroids (Questions Rands was asking)?  .... it took me a while to get into using it. What made me start actualy finding value in it? Doing little posts of "What am I doing now?" was reltively boring. None of my friends were on it, so why would I hang out there? I persisted and started following random people.

While following people who I didn't know, I started learning interesting things. Having people point me to websites, so it became a place to find some interesting content. The trick here I think is following people who have the same interest as you or perhaps are in the same proffession. Othertimes, people post strange articles which will amuse or help you kill time with interesting facts that you probably never would've needed in your life. :)

Eventually you start finding a few locals through various tools available to twitter. This is where I saw twitter starting to be used like an instant messenger tool. Annoying? Can be. But sometimes the babble is a nice debate or highly entertaining.  These local tweeple (oh yes, did I mention twitter has its own language?) or as some people refer to them as twits , saw me getting more involved in the local South African blogging community. Meeting people like @woganmay , @SheBeeGee , @andrevr and @ExMi. Of course this started inspiring me to write a bit more in the last month or so and whip out my camera.  Who's buying me a tripod for my brithday btw??

What really made me twig was when someone used the phrase "micro blogging". I thought to myself, "Great! I can blog in 140 characters REGULARLY! AMAZING! And I can do it from my cellphone when the mood strikes." With this in mind, I started finding neat little apps like twitpic and blip, which integrate nicely with twitter. I have access to multimedia in my Micro Blogs. I can show what I'm doing from my cellphone. All I need is mobypicture to give me the ability to upload audioclips and video clips directly from my cellphone. They said they'd allow it soon. *G*

My question is Twitter a fad that'll die off and lose momentum the same way facebook has for me? Is it something that will continue to add value to my every day life by introducing me to people, finding great contect and sharing my own life? Twitter is still very new in a South African context, but it is growing, or I'm just discovering more people.

Follow me and let us find out the answers.

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