The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
IÕve written about it before and I still freely admit that at the beginning, I didnÕt get it... at all. Now however it seems that twitter has hit the big time. Twitter is the microblogging service that has completely taken the world by storm over the past year. The concept is unbelievably simple. You sign up for a free account and find people to follow. Some of these people may live in an area geographically close to you. Others will live on the other side of the world. Some of these people will be in the same line of work as you and you will share something in common that way. Others wonÕt. Some people will follow you if you choose to follow them, others wonÕt. In a short time, youÕll have a network of people who will begin pouring a stream of updates into your computer. These updates can be only 140 characters long and some of them may be gems such as Òmaking coffeeÓ or Ògoing to the store. Anyone want anything?Ó Last week I listened to a recording that someone had made of their dog snoring on the living room floor. At this point you will begin to question your need of this service. But then, out of the blue someone will post a link to the greatest article on the exact topic you need and an international argument will break out. YouÕll be hooked. Soon youÕll be looking for hotel recommendations and people from around the globe will drop you pieces of advice about places you never would have considered. YouÕll soon wonder how you ever did without it. Over the past month or so, Twitter seems to be showing up everywhere. It started with the Canadian election, where both major television networks were following Twitter feeds live on the air on election night as it was unfolding around them. Then came the US election and people reacted on Twitter from all over the world. Egyptian bloggers were arrested and posted updates, letting their family and friends know where they were so they could track them and apply pressure where it was needed to get them released. Next were the attacks in Mumbai and people went to Twitter for real news from real people on the ground amid all of the confusing coverage coming from the television networks. The government of India jumped in, asking people to stop posting updates of troop movements they could see from their windows as they heard rumours that the terrorists holed up inside of the hotels under siege were also following Twitter and gaining valuable information about what was coming their way. Twitter has come of age. A deceptively simply service, it connects people around the globe together in ways that are so pervasive that users of it wonder how they learned of new things without it. Twitter is like Facebook for the hyper-connected crowd. Day or night, if you have a network of people you are connected to around the globe, there are people talking about something that you are interested in. But it is a service that you need to be patient with. There is a lot of useless chatter on Twitter. DonÕt think you are signing up for a completely work-focused and serious service, as many people let their hair down much more on Twitter than they do in a professional space such as their blog or on a company website. But in so many ways, that is part of its charm. If a blog or a company website is like a meeting space, Twitter is more like a gathering of people around a water cooler. Some of the discussions are about the latest things going on in peopleÕs lives and some are much more serious; the insider type conversations where tips and tricks are given out on the hottest items or things that are happening. So if you need one more channel to connect with the world, Twitter is one that youÕre going to want to think about. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
