All a-Twitter

Ah, where would we be without Twitter? Actually, don't answer that.

I've had a personal Twitter account for some time, and as soon as I can come up with a username I can live with, I'll set up a work one (answers on the back of a postcard, please...) Initially, I think my sheep-like tendencies were why I got an account - everyone else seemed to be doing it, so I decided I would as well - and over time, more of my friends have headed over there. I don't update very much, mostly using it for seeing what my friends are up to and picking up links to interesting articles. In that regard, I seem to be the user that this article is talking about.

Yes, Twitter can be horribly mundane and boring, but there can also be some interesting debates sparked, and trending topics can tell you what people are talking about. I like Tweets from organisations and from people who know what they're talking about, and I think that having a work account would actually be good for me. At the moment, I have various library people on my following list, and they get mixed up with updates from friends and Radio 4 items.

It's amazing how involved Twitter discussions can get, considering the character limit, and I've noticed that the really intense ones tend to move off-Twitter after a while, because people get frustrated at not being able to make their whole point, so they make a blog post, Tweet the link and so move the discussion over there. Which is, in its way, just as effective.

For me, I'm going to make these 23 Things Things about getting better organisation of my Twitter feeds, and maybe looking at something like Tweetdeck, so that I can see results from multiple Twitter accounts at the same time. Given my history with monitoring programmes that don't run through Firefox (I love my browser!), I don't hold out much hope, but I'm willing to give them a try...