I started a Twitter account sometime late in the spring of 2008. I have to admit, I was pretty reluctant to embrace the technology. I was overwhelmed by tweets, bored by a fair bit of the content and skeptical of the medium. My updates became less and less frequent until I stopped posting around the first of the year. I thought I was done with Twitter until the most recent election unrest in Iran. The critical role that Twitter played in broadcasting information captured my attention. The real time search features only added to my interest. I decided to give Twitter another go.
I have been delving back into Twitter over the last couple of weeks. This time around, I have grown to appreciate the medium. There were a few things that have bolstered my experience.
- My first time around, I just used twitter through their base website. I decided to look at a couple of different “twitter browsers” when I started twittering again. After a few different test drives, I opted to use Tweetdeck. I have found it easier to follow people and search for new people to follow. In general, I can manage the flow of information a lot more easily.
- One of the cool things on Tweetdeck is the search function. I am able to search a word or topic and I get any and all recent tweets on that particular subject. It has been pretty interesting. One of my favorite things is just to search Maui. It is amazing how much our island remains in the thoughts of people around the globe. I read a lot of tweets on great times being had on a current visit. There are lots of people tweeting excitedly about a recently booked trip. Then there are those that tweet they wish they were on Maui right now. Its a nice little reminder that I live in a pretty amazing place.
- Twitter is healthier. Part of my initial frustration with Twitter was the consistency of the site. There was a lot of downtime as this upstart company tried to scale with a rapidly growing user base. While there are still outages, they have not been nearly as frequent.
As to my own updates, I use Twitter to announce posts on this blog and other real estate information. I use it to post photos of some of the beautiful scenery on island. As a pretty voracious reader, I also link to a lot of articles that I find interesting across a diverse array of subjects. I also am prone to the what I am doing now type of updates. I still feel like I am finding my Twitter voice and learning how to interact with others on this communication. If you are interested, you can follow me on Twitter. I can’t promise that all that I post will be profound, but hopefully there will be some kernels that you find worthwhile.
