Well, I finally succumbed and signed up for a Twitter account. I don’t know… maybe it’s because Seth Godin and Clay Shirky spoke so well of it in books I’ve read recently, or it could be that I was chatting with some friends earlier today and the subject of Twitter came up. It wasn’t the inevitable “twit” pun that did it, but the conversation about translating a synchroblog onto twitter: a synchrotwit. A good laugh was had by all us missional twits. Two of us went out and signed up for twitter since that conversation.
Anyway, I’m on Twitter. The username “brothermaynard” was taken though… by someone who doesn’t seem to be actually using it. argh. Oh well, y’all will still be able to find me. Hmm. Darren Rowse just asked on Twitter, “anyone know if it’s possible to plead a case to twitter to get them to give you a twitter id that is registered but not used?” This might be useful after all. (Moments later, the how-to appears, so it’s in the works now.) In the same way, I also discovered the timely post, “If Twitter’s so Great Why Don’t I Get it — 10 Tips for Twitter Beginners.” Apparently it’s a good thing if you follow me on Twitter. I’ve been on for four hours so far — I have 7 followers and am following 21 other twits so far. Or whatever the vernacular is.
I can see how this would be much more useful than Facebook, which I’m often remiss about keeping updated. You can find my status and links to each in the sidebar of my blog now as well. I have extra room now that I’ve deleted the problematic BlogRush widget, which never seemed to do me any genuine favours. Now that it’s shutting down, who’s going to notice?
My kids and I and some friends use the facebook updates like twitter. In many ways it is like working in a big office with cubicles and overhearing snippets of each others life. You know who’s dog was sick last night, how the baby slept, what someone thought of the McCain rally last night and who is groaning over thier coffee because of lack of sleep due to studing for finals. We love it and I would guess that twitter would do the same. I find it helpful as I have a home office where I virtually can only see a very few people during my day.
Some day I’m going to nominate you for best linked posts.
Or maybe Bill …
Oh, baby…Twhirl is the way to go. Logging in to Twitter or Facebook or whatever is just too cumbersome for me and my short time. Thanks for the primer, bro!
Not sure how I found you on Twitter, but started following you (I’m “pianosteve” on there) before I saw this post. I like the “real time” aspect of following tweets. I, like Peggy, use Twhirl at the moment.