Thing 19 Twitter

Another week in and this time we are looking at all things “Twitter”. I personally don’t use twitter or have a twitter account but I do know what it is all about. Lots of people use twitter. You see the twitter icon all around the place. I understand that Twitter is an online social networking service and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters. (also known as tweets)

I know people who use twitter and I have come across some who I like to refer to as” twitterholics”

 I do think when twitter first started there was much interest in allowing friends and family to follow you and to find out what things were happening in your life, but as with time things progress and change, often into bigger and brighter ways.

After doing a lot of reading up on Twitter I can see why it is so popular. I took the time to read articles and viewed the “Twitter Guidebook” and other user guides that are out there. I must admit that I did enjoy reading the stuff about the 10 basic rules of twitter. I think it is very true that twitter has indeed developed its own language. You can see from my comment above when I used the word “twitterholics” J

Twitter seems to be the “micro blog” of choice. It allows users to send and to reply to messages. A popular part of the “twitter sphere” is the ability one has to re-tweet information that they find interesting. By re-tweeting this it allows all your followers to read what you have posted. I do like the added features of direct messaging. Having the ability to send private messages to someone who follows you directly without having to post them publicly is fantastic.

I now see why so many people like to use twitter. It’s not all about what someone has had for breakfast. I can see that people use this tool for other things besides personal information.  As I work in the library field I took time out to go and read twitter accounts from some Australian Universities. I also went and looked for news sites that use twitter as well as the odd celebrity. I can understand why a news site would use something like twitter, if there were a breaking news story, this could then be seen by all of the newspapers followers, instant access to something that is happening in our world right at this exact moment.

From all my readings about twitter I can clearly see where a library could go with using twitter. It’s a service that we could use at work to get feedback on library policy changes.  An example that is close to my work was when we changed our borrowing policy. By using twitter we as staff could have gaged our client’s reactions via twitter.

I think there are other positives for libraries if they were to use twitter –

·         Maybe by having a question and answer session you could potentially get answers within minutes. 

·         With twitter the library could highlight new services and or current library news.

The big “positive” I have found which would make me consider joining twitter is the ability to get information about conferences. I could follow twitter feeds from the guest speakers or from the vendors. I think this is a superb way of staying informed with library related information. 

From my twitter investigations I can see that there is a time and place in a library working environment for such a social media tool. I would definitely consider using twitter on a professional and networking basis rather than a personal one.