The trouble with twitter

A bit more than a month ago, I stuck my toe into the social network Twitter. What a fascinating journey it’s been so far.

The upside

Tweeps in the writer, editor, and journalist groups are a welcoming, sharing bunch. Much more than tweeting what they’re working on at any given moment, they usually comment on a shared link to headline news, offer helpful resources, or draw attention to important issues like copyright, and the impact of the internet on media content. There are informative 3 hour-long hashtag chats which function as online workshops to discuss a key issue. Tweeps in this crowd also maintain their own blog and web site. Oh, and they write too.

Twitter has enabled camaraderie and connection with lots of folks I would not have a chance to communicate with otherwise: journalists, writers and editors in Canada, the US and beyond. These tweeps commiserate, share a joke, their own comics, and blog entries, like co-workers taking a break around a virtual water cooler.

Headlines move at the speed of tweets around the world, faster than media broadcasts fixed in time like television news or the morning paper or radio. If you’re a news junkie, this can save time catching up in other media later. Much has been written about how quickly news goes viral on Twitter, like the recent horrible events in Iran, celebrity deaths or political gaffes on both sides of the Canadian/US border.

Having a bad day? Reread your favourite tweets, chuckle, repeat if necessary. My favourites range from someone lamenting why there was a whole news cycle on whether Stephen Harper ate Jesus or merely pocketed him, to another tweet which contemplated if spontaneous combustion would happen if Fahrenheit 451 was removed from a Kindle.

The downside

The networking river is as wide and deep as you want to make it. Referred to by one prolific tweeter, a technology internet lawyer, as “the gateway drug to social media”, Twitter is very addictive. You will find yourself dipping back in more and more often to see what’s going on, especially if you’re a news junkie.

Getting Twitter started takes work. I find it rather humourous that I bought Joel Comm’s book Twitter Power to learn how to set up a home page, background pic, install Tweetdeck and understand the syntax and protocol of tweeting. Finding the right WordPress plugin for Twitter for this blog’s sidebar is still a work in progress (as you can see!) and someday when I’m not so busy (yeah, when pigs fly…) I’ll find a way to add the Twitter link to my main site. Getting Twitter going has certainly slowed my blogging frequency considerably but I have set a new #writegoal to get that in motion.

Twitter’s bastardization of the written word slays me as it feels counterintuitive to maintaining excellent writing skills.  I am horrified to learn that ”favorite”is a verb (US spelling, double ugh) . It is somewhat disturbing that I now know what it means to “disemvowel” a tweet and why it’s necessary. There are a whole slew of short forms and acronyms that are mystifying at first but make more sense over time, especially if you know some texting shorthand, IMHO.

Every new technology seems to come with its own bunch of spammers. Enter just one word the Twit-spammers are auto-searching for, like “funny video” or “starcraft” and they jump right on it with a retweet and an attempt to follow. Vigilance to block is a necessity, but that’s the same for email, so c’est la vie. It would be great if Twitter would come up with some kind if spam blocker, like WordPress’ Akismet plugin.

Bottom Line

I’m hooked. The social networking is well worth the plunge into the river, I just have to remember when to step out and dry off from time to time and get back to work.