Why I like Twitter
I spent most of my Christmas holiday trying to explain to recalcitrant friends and relatives what's so good about . Below are a few personal reasons why I like Twitter, all of which are quite in addition to the normal reasons someone might cite (e.g. keep in touch with friends, keep track of what I'm doing, keeping up with famous people etc.)
The first reason is a nice email I received from a cousin a few weeks ago. My cousin, who follows me on Facebook, said she has enjoyed all my status updates (automatically linked to my Twitter account) since it meant she was getting to know me better. That was pretty cool.
The second happened just today. I twittered that I was on my way to a meeting in King's Cross when a friend, who works around King's Cross, sent me a direct message to see if I was in her building. As it happens, I was at a different building, but suggested we meet for coffee when I was finished. She couldn't, but Twitter very nearly set up a spontaneous coffee with someone I hadn't seen since well before Christmas.
The third is that it automatically publishes when I publish a new post here (done via the excellent ). I try not to push my blog onto people, but it's great to get good feedback from people about posts (which is what's happened via Twitter) and it means I'm getting more readers (and so blogging more).
Finally, I can keep up to date on what I've done at work. The weeks go by pretty quickly, so it's good to keep track of what I've done. Obviously, I don't include specifics — that would be unprofessional, and if blogging and work don't really mix, then twittering and work certainly don't.
The real value of Twitter comes to the fore when friends are on it. I hope this post convinces some of my reticent friends...
Filed in Arbitrary Constant, General Interest, Personal, Society, Work