The 'value' I get from Twitter

I am starting to 'get' Twitter now and was thinking this morning about what the 'value' is that I get from investing time using it.

I may be a slightly odd Twit because I prefer to keep the clutch of people I follow quite small. I check Twitter maybe 6 times a day and I want to be able to quickly scan the tweets since my last post without having to troll through too many screens. I compare it to a dinner party where I can't 'hear' all the conversation in the room at once so I join a small group and then move to a different group of people when I'm ready. So no offence if I drop you from my list of followees for a bit; I'm just working the room!

The value I get from Twitter falls into 4 different categories:

• Firstly, as a professional development tool in terms of libraries in its broadest sense. I tend to keep following people who share links to interesting stuff. Its like reading newspapers in companiable silence with a mate and you share snippets with each other. I follow briankelly, citegeist, mstephen7, gnat and littlehigh for this reason.
• Secondly, its a way to keep informed about business because I currently have a horrified fascination with whats happening in the world economy; bernardchickey is fabulous for posting interesting links as he comes across them.
• Thirdly, as a Koha-ian, I want to become familiar with members of the Koha global community. I want to 'personalize' or get to know who the people are who post to the Koha list. Its amazing how you start to add 'colour' to an image of someone you only ever 'see' as a name online - all from just 140 character posts each day.
• And lastly there are people I know personally, or care about, but don't get to see or talk to very often so its nice to stay in touch. Its like waving at someone across the room

So thats me. I started writing this post to promote a couple of blog posts about Twitter and librarians:

Twitter basics for librarians by Leora Wenger (leoraw on Twitter) and 14 UK information professionals to follow on Twitter by Brian Kelly (briankelly on Twitter).

Twitter Data Analysis: An Investor’s Perspective

This post is merely pointing you to the remarkable analysis of Twitter usage carried by Robert J Moore, CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics.

Just go read it ...

What the web stretegist should know about Twitter

Great link on the Web4lib digest this morning, linking to this post on on Jeremiah Owyang's blog Social Media, Web Marketing.

Provides a really good introduction to Twitter, plus loads of related links to other posts about using Twitter to market your business or service. Heres an excerpt:

"The savvy Twitter user realizes that the effective communications aren’t just ‘pushing’ content to readers, but they will also dialogue and converse with others by replying to them. I use this tool as a global chat room, responding to others, building relationships, and listening in. Like blogging, the rule of anti-marketing marketing is required for success, engage your community. Unlike traditional forms of advertising and marketing, Twitter is “opt-in” meaning that users will ‘follow’ a twitter account, abuse will result in a user unsubscribing. "

The Twittering Class Moves On

Just popped over to the new-look Stuff.co.nz - its pretty cool - and I found something interesting too, which is always a bonus!

This story about 12seconds.tv which is a site where you post 12 seconds of video from your cellphone... its like Twitter with video not words - although it does post to your Twitter account too if you want it too....

How to present while people are twittering.

Driving back last night from a meeting about Professional Registration for Librarians (and yes I'm sending mine off today) we were talking about social media. I mentioned how I learnt about Twitter at the Bridging World's conference in Singapore where members of the audience and some of the speakers were communicating on the 'back channel' : Twitter. I found it quite intriguing that discussions were taking place in real time while the paper was being presented - including questions which some hardy soul ocasionally asked the speaker at the end of the session. Not sure how I felt about it; it looked kinda rude with people not paying attention but I guess they must have been in order to sustain the conversation...

Anyway, this article by Olivia Mitchell, reported on Twitter by @cindi, discuses the issue of how to present while your audience twitters.

Twittering Libraries

I got sprung by the boss last week observing the social phenomenon that Twitter has become.

Comedian Stephen Fry is an active twitterer - and he got stuck in a lift. Using his cellphone he 'tweeted' saying as much, alongside a photograph of the inside of the lift - again using his cellphone (see above).

What happened over the next hour was extraordinary. People all over the world - hundreds of people - tagged his photo and posted hilarious comments ... which kept the crowded lift mightily amused - not to mention naughty librarians in New Zealand who were meant to be working.

I am fascinated by Twitter now - after an initial 'WTF' respose. What I saw unfolding was akin to a live, totally unscripted, sitcom episode with hundreds of bit players. And Twitter is huge - make no mistake about it. 752% growth in registered members in 2008.

Public libraries need to be where the punters are and they are increasingly on Twitter. So how can libraries use this social tool? I don't know how we will yet but Lindy Brown, guest contributor on Tame the Web has some ideas in her recent post.

Click here to read her article which provides background information and a brief history of Twitter, notes the pros and cons reported by libraries using it, and shares findings on innovative ways libraries are using the service.

At the time she wrote the article, late 2008, she found about 90 libraries on Twitter but she has since found many more - and many more possibilities Twitter can provide for librarians. Check out her blog post on Tame the Web for more.

So while some may see twitter as just another fad I'm not so sure. And we lose nothing by playing along for a while anyway and see where it takes us!

So where were you when USA elected her first black President?

I was sitting at home sharing 2 hours of jubilation with hundreds of strangers from all over the world... thanks to Twitter.

Odd concept really; an entire site built around answering the question: "What are you doing" in 140 characters or less. I had joined the Election 2008 group and was reading 'tweets' from people all around the world - so many different languages from so many different countries - and all sending warm wishes and congratulations to the Americans. And it was pretty damn special witnessing so many hundreds of people express their elation at the election result . . . over and over again as people awoke, logged in and yelped for joy.

Flickr is being used to gather together messages from all around the world for Barack Obama; really cool example of utilizing crowd sourcing to capture the spirit of our time - and this is history unfolding.

I was thinking about all this in relation to a long discussion I held with Deb and Pippa yesterday about the digital divide. And I got to thinking just how brilliantly the whole election experience with Twitter highlighted to me how technology is also being used to brilliantly bridge divides of geography, nationality and community - it truly was a global party! Brian Kelly blogged about this being a 'water cooler' moment and very cleverly took a screenshot before the group dissappeared (which I failed to do). Interesting too the comment from Kev Hickey on Brian's blog:

"As I posted on Jaiku this morning “Via Twitter I can see that Lee le Fever has a street party in Seattle, Stephen Fry is grinning in Madagascar & John Cleese is tapdancing”.

Glad too that a Facebook group has been set up to capture photographs from around the world depicting this momentous turning point in American history - thank you Jenny Levine. We posted an image of the 30minute updates we posted in Levin Library (yes America - the world cared about this election!)

PS Great post on BoingBoing.