Right, so everyone knows what it is, all the celebrities seem to be using it, but why? Why is Twitter so popular?
For those of you who (somehow) don't know what Twitter is, it's a website which allows you to "follow" other people's "tweets" which appear in a time-line, similar to Facebook's "Recent Updates" feature. The difference is that a "tweet" is limited to just 140 characters, meaning that they take just a few seconds to read each.
I have to admit, when I made my Twitter account for the first time about two and a half years ago, I looked at it and thought "What the fuck is this shit?". Later on though, I heard about Stephen Fry using it, and I thought "HOLY SHIT I LOVE STEPHEN FRY!", went on there for a few minutes, hit that "Follow" button on his profile, read his tweets and then promptly forgot about the existence of Twitter. It wasn't until last year, just before I started Uni that I decided to go and follow a fuck-ton of people. Most of them being fictional characters, and a couple of bands. That lasted about a week.
The thing that *really* started off my Twitter life was when I realised you could have Tweets posted directly to your Facebook profile, as it's kind of sharing whatever pointless update I'm posting to two groups of people, not just one. I don't know why this revalation inspired me to re-examine the possibilities of Twitter, but I'm glad it did.
What can Twitter be used for?
See, the problem people have with twitter (or at least the problem I had) was that it just seems tailor-made for vicariously living the lives of Celebrities, and nothing more. Admittedly, the first thing I did when I got on it WAS to follow as many of them that came to mind, along with a few people I know in person.
It wasn't until I started following news feeds, bloggers, game developers & festivals that I started to see the potential that this site has.
There's a feature that I feel is somewhat over-looked with Twitter, and that is the ability to get someone's tweets sent directly to your mobile phone as a text message. So, say for example that you want all the latest news updates as soon as they're out, you can follow a news feed & enable text alerts - By just clicking on two buttons: Follow, and Enable Text Alerts. Of course, you can disable these just as easily too.
But think outside of the box: A bakery in London use Twitter to let customers know when a fresh batch is out of the oven, resulting in them selling out within 5 minutes in some cases [link]. How awesome is that? It's a lot better than finding out what colour Hayley William's hair is this week.
Something that I was really ashamed of myself for was the recent tsunami in Japan - I didn't find out about it until about 24 hours after it happened. For a day being sat on the internet looking on Facebook and watching TV shows, I'm amazed I didn't randomly check the BBC News page, or see a Facebook update. If I had of checked Twitter, I'd have seen a tweet from one of my news feeds, but no. Nothing.
Of course, just a few years ago the idea of not knowing about something like that almost as soon as it happened was normal. You'd see it on the evening news, or on the front pages the next day. But this is what Twitter's done, it's made us hungry for information as soon as it's available. Anything else is just... old news. No one cares anymore and they're onto the next thing.
The awesomeness of Twitter.
So, you've got a Twitter account, and you've got the people want to follow: News, a couple of celebs, maybe a comedian. Now what? You can set up text alerts for the news, but anyone else just tweets complete shit that you don't want filling up your phone's inbox. Get the App! I do two things now when I wake up: 1: check my emails, 2: check my twitter feed - Both on my phone.
It may seem stupid to a lot of you, but now when I wake up, I can see what's g'wan with my Facebook and shit via email, and then what's going on in the world via Twitter. I'm up-to-date. I'm connected. I'm a nerd. I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy.
Welcome to the digital age.
Good ideas for who to Follow:
I'm obviously not going to tell you WHO to follow, but I will give you example of categories, and who in that category you can follow, just to give you an idea.
Comedians: Twitter doesn't need to be all about constant updates about the news, freshly baked scones or even current events. Follow a comedian or two, it's refreshing to have a random joke thrown in there every now and then. I follow Jimmy Carr who tweets a few, but not too many. There's nothing worse than someone who tweets 10, 20 times an hour. It needs to be a nice mixture of stuff.
The News: This one's a given. I follow: BBC Breaking (With text alerts, as it's only big stories tweeted here), The Guardian & Engadget. This is just to keep me up-to-date with what's going on in the world, the latest gadgets that are being released and stuff like that.
Celebrities: Okay, yeah. It's not really something to boast about in most cases, but the chances are that you have a mini-obsession with at least one celebrity, and you're at least a little bit interested in what they have to say. You might as well whack them on your list. I have a lot, but the most notable are Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, Corey Taylor & Charlie Brooker.
Bands: Why not? See where they are atm, get the news on their latest tour dates, see if they're planning a new album. Bands are awesome to follow.
People you know: This is a good one. People tweet more than they update they statuses, and if they annoy you, just unfollow. :P
Peace out,
Spudguy
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