Twitter has been growing exponentially since its launch, but if you’re like a lot of people I’ve talked to, you aren’t on it yet. I’m sure you have plenty of good reasons for staying away, but I thought I’d use today’s post to make a case for joining the conversation.
So, why should you join Twitter?
1. It’s where the news is.
Most of the 56 people I follow on Twitter are CAD-related in some way – either Autodesk colleagues or other industry leaders. (The rest are just for fun…a few authors, celebrities, and one or two actual news feeds.) They often link to articles or blog posts I haven’t seen yet, or post CAD tips in 140 characters or less. It’s a rare day when I don’t learn something from a tweet.
It’s also great for breaking news – things get posted nearly in real time, so it’s easy to keep up.
I manage my feeds with a free program called TweetDeck. It lets me display people in different lists in different columns, plus see who’s mentioned me in recent tweets.
New tweets pop up in a little window similar to an Outlook e-mail notification. They fade after a few seconds, so I can ignore them or click on a link if it’s something that catches my attention.
(You can turn these off if you don’t want them – they can be a little…distracting.)
2. It’s fun to eavesdrop.
A few of the people I follow like to use Twitter to talk to each other like they were sitting at neighboring desks. Sometimes I join in, sometimes I just laugh along at my own desk. It’s almost like being at the office, without smelling the tuna fish they brought for lunch.
3. You don’t have to say anything.
Just because you join Twitter doesn’t mean you have to post a single tweet. Lurking is perfectly acceptable. It’s easier to organize the people you like to follow if you have an account, but nothing says you have to speak up yourself.
4. When you do have something to say, it’s easy to say it.
However, chances are that some tweet will go by that you want to comment on, or you have a question for somebody you follow. If you already have an account, it’s easy to dash off your 140-character message and join the conversation.
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Those are my top 4 reasons – do you have more?
Get the feed
Follow me on Twitter
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Another reason Twitter is great is both the blessing and challenge of dealing with the 140 character limitation, without cheating. Writing short, precise messages is much more time consuming than just simply writing Ad Infinitum.
Posted by: Emmanuel Garcia | January 10, 2011 at 02:14 PM
True...it always reminds me of the quote, "I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one." (Apparently said by Blaise Pascal, *not* Lincoln, as I thought before writing this comment.)
Posted by: Kate Morrical | January 10, 2011 at 02:25 PM
For a list of Tweets to follow, as well as RSS feeds to add to AutoCAD/LT (yes, it does that), explore this topic from Between-The-Lines Blog:
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2010/07/adding-autocad-related-blog-or-twitter-feeds-in-autocad-infocenter.html
Posted by: Dean Saadallah | January 15, 2011 at 06:28 PM
A couple of great reasons for Twitter:
News: Fastest way to get it, often before the "real" media, if not always reliable. Last year was bizarre to tell my sister about things going on in her city (power, road outages, facilities damaged etc) after a severe earthquake as I (hundreds of km's away) found out faster via Twitter than they did being there.
Events: Makes connecting with people, working out where they are etc much easier and of course Tweetups like this one at AU (which are more about meeting than tweeting)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinzblog/5237339520/in/set-72157625518876970/
Posted by: RobiNZ | January 17, 2011 at 04:53 AM