Week Seven: Microblogging

Look at me getting this done on time. I didn't do so good last week :(

This week's assignment: Twitter
I just have to say that I was never going to do twitter. I'm a big weirdo and when things become really popular and people can't quit talking about something, by the time it occurs to me to join I am so tired of hearing about it, that it is the last thing I want to do. Case in point, Twitter :) So, here we are week 7 and that is my task at hand. I'm doing it for the library and for the library only. When I get hooked and can't pry my fingers away from the keyboard, you know who to blame.

My twitter name is elizabethiepoo (it said be original lol).

So far, I'm not sure what I think about twitter. It's purpose is fairly similar to facebook, though it is nice to not have to deal with games, quizzes, etc. clogging up my news feed. I do like that is strictly what the person wants to share, but I kind of like not being restricted to just 140 characters. It's basically like texting via the internet.

It wasn't easy to find people to follow...twitter is "stressed right now and that option has been disabled" so there is no search option right now. Luckily 23 things posted links to several twitter accounts and from there I can follow that person as well as others in the class that are followers of them. Ha ha we've outsmarted you twitter ;)

I have to say that I do feel pretty cool since I am now following Justin Timberlake, Ben Folds and the Dixie Chicks....I'm now part of their close inner circle and we're going to start hanging out right?? Yeah, I'm definitely much cooler now. I'm also following several of my favorite magazines, fashion sites and foodie faves and discovered Random House, LibraryJournal and Penguin Publishing on twitter. I've discerned that just because I follow someone they don't necessarily have to follow me, which keeps me from posting on their page or speaking to them. Rude...I mean I'm kind of a big deal. lol. I kind of feel like....have you ever gone to someone else's family dinner and get caught in their family discussion. You just sit their awkwardly, privy to more information than they'd probably like or normally share. You can't say anything because they don't want your input and it's none of your business. Twitter seems to be a bit like that. I kind of feel like a spy with no interaction. Which I think is AWESOME by the way. ;) If we could all just share more than 140 characters.....hehe

I haven't really found any posts that helpful, but some have been interesting to read which has helped me get through this long week...so I guess it was helpful.

At first I was a little skeptical on how twitter could benefit our library. I read the article "100 ways to use twitter at your library" that was linked on the 23thingsks page. I found some interesting suggestions there. I think it could be helpful. I'm not sure how many of our patrons have twitter though. With facebook, there is a very large amount of our patrons that are on there. Maybe with twitter's increasing popularity we will see the numbers go up. I liked the idea of using it for question and answer discussions. We might try it out over the next couple of months and see if we have any luck, otherwise we might just stick with facebook.

My biggest pro for twitter: No ads, quizzes, games, applications, etc to clog up my news feed making it easier for me to keep up with what's going on with those I'm following.

My biggest con: Near constant need to tweet. From what I gather, the point of twitter is to post what you are doing many times throughout the day, which can take a lot of time especially if you are following a lot of people. I don't think I'll be very good at keeping it up-to-date.

We shall see...I'll post again when I have more time to play with all of these gadgets ;)