is writing about Twitter
Posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 10:07pm. #
As of the time of writing, my Twitter feed has 122 followers. 122 people get my updates. And I must confess to being rather perplexed as to why.
I mean - I try to keep the editorial standards of this blog at least slightly above rock-bottom, but the same certainly doesn’t go for my Twitter feed. Firstly, I phrase my ‘tweets’ slightly oddly so that they also work in Facebook (which I’ve set up to automatically get them); and secondly, because… well. Here’s the last 24 hours or so, and you can make your own mind up…
- is discovering that Google Apps For Your Domain’s start page strips out lots of HTML tags, irritatingly
- is astonished at the poor people-flow designed into Benugo at StPancras. But is enjoying sandwich.
- is amazingly untroubled by a hangover this morning.
- is hungry. Mmm, food.
- is enjoying beerage (Black Sheep Bitter) with a good friend. Would invite you. But I won’t.
- has just discovered that the Midas Touch has shut. Bugger.
- is eating a chilli-con-carne soup (for lunch. Yes. At 4pm) which is officially hotter than the sun.
Yes, this is not the work of an Pulitzer prize-winning journalist. This is, instead, the work of a hurried tapping into an iPhone keyboard or GTalk window. It’s got virtually nothing to do with my day job; indeed, nothing to do with, well, anything much.
So, why do people follow me? I’ve no idea. So I asked, on Twitter, naturally. Here are some of the replies…
- “because you’re a pal”
- “it’s good to keep up with one of the people I most respect in radio tech.. and it’s nice to hear how my pals are doing :)”
- “because I’m nosy, you’re an acknowledged new media guru expert and fellow new/old media colleague of sorts”
- “we shared emails re Media UK then much later met briefly at a podcast conference - Twitter is a useful way to keep in touch.”
…and what’s fascinating about the above is that I’ve not met one of those people, and can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve met the others. While they’re jolly nice people, they’re not what I would call close friends. Not yet.
It’s people who’ve never met me that I find confusing. Why on earth do they add me? I asked one such person this via email. She replied, in part, “I found you after doing a web search for twitter and BBC because I wanted to increase the number of people I was following on twitter so I could better understand what it’s for. That also turned up Jemima Kiss who writes for the Guardian. So, I’m randomly following four complete strangers (all of whom have public blogs though and invite new readers) but it’s good to see how people are using Twitter. I’m sold on the concept, but I agree it might be a bit odd to have strangers following you. I’d like to think it’s not stalking but then again maybe it’s not that clear cut.” (She’s clearly not seen my Friendfeed or my rather more hand-rolled and complete stalkerfeed.)
Of my met-many-times friends, of course, I got sarcastic comments like “it saves actually going to the effort of going to the pub with you”, which just goes to show that clearly NickJ needs to stop spending money on Apple kit, if he can’t afford the beer bill.
But perhaps Ian Fenn has it right. “Somehow these little snippets of others’ lives are reassuring”. I’d agree.
If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, either visit the Twitter website and register from there, or text “FOLLOW JAMESCRIDLAND” to 0762 4801423 (there are other numbers for the US, Canada and India). I just can’t promise that the updates you’ll get from me will be any good. Sorry.
My media website Media UK also provides a set of media news alerts via Twitter.
Photo: Niall Kennedy. Used under licence.
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