Just back from a rare venture out to a book club I've joined. Which obviously has nothing at all to do with the mysteries of twitter. It just struck me that somehow, a book club is a rather old fashioned thing. For one, there's books involved. You know those things people read before TV and laptops, and strangely, still read. Even if these people are as addicted to the internet as I am. It was a great night out. I wavered a bit to make the 30 min car journey to the other side of the city, but it was well worth it. A good book (Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
), mercifully short as well so that I had actually read it, a lovely pub (78 in Kelvinhaugh Street, what a gem of a place! Can I have it moved to the south side please?) and good company. 4 women, 2 non mums (they exist????) and in spite of 2 strangers, we chatted all evening.
Good old traditional stuff.
Yet I'm also an internet/email/blogging addict, on facebook, soon to join linked in, love fiddling about with photo (book) software (although haven't yet ventured as far as taking pictures in RAW format which Im told is the ultimate digital photographic experience) and generally spend more time at the computer than is good for me.
I'm not on Twitter. Now there's a surprise. Everyone these days seems to be. Am I missing something? It's a serious question. So from what I gather, it's about mini blogging. I don't think I'm interested in that, I quite like maxiblogging. Apparently it's something linked to mobile phones because you send tweets by text message. That seriously turns me off, I hate texting. Then again, Twitter is the stuff of Iranian revolutions and there must be something to it that I don't get if everyone else is using it.
So what is it that I'm missing? Should I get an account? What's in it for me, a text message despising book lover? Can I get something useful out of it? I don't just want to have another gadget, waste more time on the computer but if anyone can explain to me what's so cool about twitter, please do. I'm open minded. Honest. Just don't quite get it just yet. ("Not yet" I hear Culbing echo one of her favourite phrases).
Oh and the Best of British Mummy (and Daddy) Bloggers is now up at Brits in Bosnia.
8 comments:
I'm with you on this one. Haven't quite seen the point of it yet, but haven't tried it out either. Just know that I don't need any encouragement to spend any more time at the computer.
Im on twitter, resisit getting sucked in, you cant resist the urge to look and all you hear about it what strangers are having for lunch/ dinner etc!
I don't get Twitter either. My partner tweets but to me it seems a bit, well, pointless. Like, do I really care what Stephen Fry had for breakfast? It being the Tour de France at the mo, partner is following loads of cyclists' tweets. They are, almost without exception, exceedingly banal.
I must admit, I'm still not convinced ;)
Spoke to a woman the other day who said something about some people on twitter releasing important information before the world hears of it - a kind of newsflash on your phone? Not sure though what kind of news I would have to know before 10pm at night or how to distinguish the great from the average.
I was on Twitter for a while, but have deleted my account, because I didn't like it. However, I don't know anyone who Twitters, so I was only following celebrities and bloggers.
I think it could be quite nice if you can follow your friends or family - it would be like the bit you get on Facebook, only more frequent.
No, I'm not convinced either.
I started on Twitter a few months ago, and it can waste a lot of time you don't have, but I soon found that 140 characters are not enough and started my blog - much more satisfying. I don't tweet much now.
Im addicted to twitter, i guess i love it because its quick. I run past my computer and tweet , out and about i tweet from my phone or upload a picture. I don't always get the time for Maxi Blogging.
I always loved the idea of a book club but have never found one on at a suitable time .
There are lots of reasons why I'm a fan of Twitter, but here's just one recent example of how Twitter offers real-time news.
A few weeks ago, after my lunch break I headed back to my office in Covent Garden and noticed four fire trucks parked outside the Covent Garden underground station. I asked the firemen what the problem was and they said there was a fire in SoHo so they needed to stop all traffic heading in that direction. Everyone in the office watched the news for updates but there was NO NEWS on TV or Online News sites about the fire, so I checked Twitter and found tweets about the fire (locating it's exact location and even included images taken from mobile phones). I quickly called friends that worked in or around Dean street to make sure they were OK and it was amazing how some of them hadn't event noticed there was a fire around the corner until I had contacted them about it.
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