At the end of 2008, just a few months ago, I got it, the way twitter functions. I was resting on the sidewalk after an evening jog, when I observed an army of ants interacting.
Have you ever seen ants ‘talking to each other’? They have a very short ‘talk-time’, lol. However they make sure they say what they have to say in the shortest possible time, to keep every ant on the same page. It was in this moment that it hit me! The ants had twitter, a long time ago. We are now catching up!
What Is Twitter?
It is a communication platform that has the ability to keep everyone on the same page in real time!
Lol, truth be told, I just made that up. I wished I’d been able to decipher this from the infinite wisdom of Mother Nature herself. However I have yet to become that man, lol.
The real story is the insight from a blog post I had read. Yes it is important to read blogs! I believe it was Seth Godin who described this concept to me, and I got it!
Twitter is primarily about speed and immediacy. It was a simple way to keep people informed with you and for you to keep informed with them. I am sure that those of you who use Twitter have experienced this.
How Twitter Fits In Our Lives? – I finally got it
We are now able to share special days, thoughts, emotions, ideas and the events of our life with each other no matter our geographic location. We can share this stuff with friends as it happens! The option to share with the world it right at our finger tips.
In some cases you might be able to share key points from speeches while you are still listening or you if you are lucky enough you can break, breaking news before the news or mainstream media.
Another Perspective on Tweeting a.k.a Status Update
Another way to look at it is that Twitter is really blogging but with 140 chars. Take a look at one of my previous posts – Why Start A Blog?. The reach of twitter allows you to magnify your voice. Even if you have very few followers persons can easily share your tweets, by “retweeting” it on their twitter.
Twitter is of course the most popular service for this kind of thing, but it is no different from other social networks with their status updates (e.g. Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn etc)
CG 2.0 Starts To Tweet
Now with a very deliberate effort I created meaningful tweets and status messages which kept people up to date with the thoughts and experiences I had been having. I also included some entertainment related breaking news – as I am often privy to such information.
The result was that those persons close to me actually paid a far greater attention to my tweets and status updates. It was a way to check up on me. In some cases if they tried to contact me, and didn’t get me, they checked my tweets or status messages.
What really surprised me, is when I met up with few different people I had not been in contact in years and they were very much aware of what was the latest and greatest thing with me. These people had never commented on my updates but they were just as interested in what I have to say!
How big your voice? Mine seems to be pretty big for the 140 chars!
Follow me – www.twitter.com/coreykgraham
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