Twitter (All in a ...)

[The Beer Philosopher]

Okay, I pride myself on being relatively tech savvy. I am generally up to speed on most of the social networking tools available to anyone with a computer and internet connection these days, but unlike MySpace, Face Book, Digg or del.icio.us ... I just don't know if I thoroughly "get" Twitter ...
I have been inundated as of late with notifications in my email inbox informing me that random people are now "following me on Twitter." I don't know whether to be alarmed or honored, frankly. I don't often update "what I'm doing" on Twitter and even if I did, I obviously fail to see the thrill in anyone knowing what I'm doing right now. Let's all face it; I'm just not that exciting.

None the less, people persist and they follow me ... bunched of them! I feel like I'm living the virtual equivalent of that Verizon Wireless commercial with the crowd following me around everywhere led by that annoying squirrely guy with the dark-rimmed glasses. I guess this is really all very cool, but I feel like I'm missing out on the "coolness" of it all because I don't get it. Okay, I admit ... I've not spent much time there figuring it out either.

Someone help me get it! Why should I be impressed with all these folk following me and what do I do with them now that I have them? How do I make the most of my Twitter experience?

How’s that for off-topic??? ;)

[Chipper Dave]

Several months ago I tried Twitter. I was able to hook it into my blog. This way, my friends could keep up with what I was doing "at the moment". It was interesting for a while, but basically became another way for me to just having to constantly update something. It was essentially a one liner blog or a text message to let everyone know what I was doing. I could see that it might be an interesting way to "live blog" an event or something, or to create a forum-like tool for the blog. But I also didn't totally get it. I believe it's changed a bit since I've used it but it just became another "chain" that kept me tethered to my blog and the internet.

[Eli the Mad Beer Man]

Twitter is the technological version of the anti-christ. 1) It's only going to worsen our already insanely short attention spans, and 2) proves that we as a society have reached the tipping point. Is our society at a utopia now that we have all this free time to keep track of what we're all doing each and every second of the day -- like hey I'm walking down the street now; hey, I'm going to get a cup of overpriced coffee at Starbucks; hey I have to take a dump now. It's finally come to the point where we have nothing better to do, huh? Wow.

All I have to say is... hello Rome. Next stop... the inevitable fall of society.

"If we do not learn from our past, we are doomed to repeat our failures.”

[Douglas Park]

To be honest, I don't think we are the target audience for Twitter, thus the reason we don't really get it... :) I have done a little reading on it and have seen it used successfully through one of my contacts on Facebook. For the social butterflies out there that are tech savvy and constantly on their cell phones, Twitter is an interesting way of keeping in touch with their network. Imagine if you were in college and you had a bunch of friends that your regularly hung out with and you all wanted to keep tabs on each other... instead of constantly sending mass text messages to everyone, all you would have to do is update your twitter site and everyone that you care about could know where you were and what you were doing and whether they should join you or not. That is a simple example, but I think it demonstrates the idea. I agree no one really cares that I, dugpark, am going to be preparing some Memphis-style ribs and then mowing the lawn for the next 2 hours, but my social network primarily is made up of my family in my house and my neighbors, so they can just look out the window... :)

Good article here (also search Twitter in general on Wired)

[Chipper Dave]

Gaa! What have you done! I got curious enough again to look at it and started posting to it again.

[Douglas Park]

Just like dominoes...

[Eli the Mad Beer Man]

Oh no, I agree... it's definitely not for us. Twitter was invented by the guy who invented Blogger.com. I "get" blogging, as I think we all do. Heck, I use Blogger! ;) This Twitter thing though is absurd.

See, to me no one should "constantly" be on their cell phones. Why? What's the point? What can be THAT important? Rhetorical question, there isn't anything that important. So what are these texters and twitterers NOT doing that they should be doing when they're texting people 24/7? Driving? Studying? Back in the day we (well, girls) may have spent hours on the phone, but there was a set time they could do that. Now? Constant 24/7 connection anywhere, anytime.

My point was that we've become Rome. A fat, lazy society with nothing better to do then twitter people over what? Zip. Sure, we can say that about A LOT of things - including what we do here for instance, but Twitter is taking it to a whole nutha level that frankly we don't need. People today now have an entitlement complex where they think a life will be given to them with the wave of a magic wand, and they don't have to do anything to earn it. This Twitter thing is only going to heighten that, and worse... make the kids get medication for ADD even earlier. Which frankly is a crock of crap anyway. ADD can be rectified with a lil something I like to call a swat to the ass. It's healthier then turning kids into medicated dependent zombies.

We're at a saturation point now where we're all constantly bombarded with an influx of media. Constant connection, constant information... Twitter is only going to make it worse. What's next? Brain implants with direct feeds? Sooner or later it's gonna all come crashing down. The human brain can only take so much "constant."

You mentioned a scenario about being at college... well, I went to college (graduated too!) and never once did I ever want to keep tabs on any of my friends tedius activities throughout the day. That's just stupid. What's the point? There isn't a single human being on the face of this planet that I would want to follow THAT closely. What value does it bring me? I have so many other things to do in my day that I could care less what someone else is doing 24/7. It's POINTLESS and a huge waste of time.

But hey, that's just my two cents. ;)

[Stan Hieronymus]

When I mentioned to our 11-year-old I had stuck my toe in the Twitter water she said, "but you don't text."

But I'm not going to get updates on my cell phone. I have done a couple of posts from the phone and my do so on our upcoming trip when I know I will be days without getting online.

Right now I look at the page with people I am following online. If there the reading is good (often links to blow posts are articles) and the ideas are interesting I will continue. So I'm looking for interesting people to follow.

[William Brand]

The trouble with twitter and beer people is that it allows total banality...Hey, I;m at whatever bar and I just drank an Fuller's ESB and then I drank a... and on into the night..

[Doctors Orders Brewing]

I got an account on Twitter, not long after they started.
I didn't get it then (and I do Identity for a living).
However more recently with the proliferation of more powerful mobile devices between my friends and colleagues I'm finding it another great way of keeping in touch with colleagues and friends.
This weekend I was on the AussieHomeBrewer.com pubcrawl, and I used twitter as a log of where and what I drank, so that I could bring back the memories next day.

Works for me....,Doc

[theBryon]

Well, this little discussion lead me to try it... I see the potential, but it's not really something I see myself using much. Although I just added it to my blog as a proof of concept test... Maybe it would be good on some sort of road trip or something...

[Deege]

I use twitter (@deege). If you're using it as "I did 'X' today" or answer the "I am" question, you probably won't get much out if it nor will you get many followers.

I look at it as a tool to communicate with other bloggers, although I am slowly finding other homebrewers/beer lovers on Twitter. It can also be another way for your audience to connect with you. Some use email, some use comments, some use twitter.

Twitter is one of those things that you get out what you put in. I've been on for a few months and met several other bloggers, some a-listers, and they've even added links to my posts. Good for traffic.

As for the target audience, most of the groups I've seen are the blogger/SEO types (usually 30-40 yrs old, which surprised me). Helpful for gleaning blog information and tips. Like I said earlier, there are some beer people on twitter but the numbers are still small. There are a few breweries, like Flying Dog, on Twitter.

Another way to look at it, is in twitter you can grow an audience. Suddenly you have a group of people that will hear you instantly in 180 characters or less. That can be very powerful.

[theBryon]

Interesting way of looking at it... Probably a great tool for someone trying to really drum up business and traffic.