Since opening my Twitter account and then going back to it when Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross publicised the phenomenon, the challenge has been what exactly to mumble on about. I send text messages to my friends when it's inconvenient to ring, so I don't deem such conversations as "meet at Mucky Duck at 8 for pint" or "what do you mean, she was a he? And you left me at the bar with her/him?" particularly interesting for people that can sign up my stream from the other side of the world.
My "theory" for people that use Twitter and also happen to live in the normal, mundane world is to only submit text that is interesting and/or stirs conversation. Sometimes I'll conveniently forget and start turning my feed into a blog that started in 1999 and believes the whole world is reading and cannot wait for the next exciting update - notifications such as "just finished work - what a drag" and "urgh just sneezed and missed the handkerchief". Generally though I'd like to think that I'd Twit webpages of interest, snippets of news that I've heard on the grapevine in my field of enjoyment, or perhaps some words of wisdom/idiocy that I came upon.
If only it were that simple. It's easy to turn Twitter into a plug-machine for various projects, devoid of any attempt at communication with your followers. The problem with being an "ordinary" is our projects are often some sort of website, which we've all seen before, and that don't become anything after a few hundred hits. It's the famous people that use the service which have the exciting projects, because we all want to know what they're doing. It's here where the rules don't apply, because generally anything plugged by the likes of Kevin Spacey, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi and Robert Llewellyn is likely to be worth seeing and reading into, the mundane updates are something to savour because of their special status in society.
It could be argued that to use Twitter effectively it would be wise to have a claim to fame beforehand. Those of us at work haven't a mobile at hand with which to text meaningful updates and as such, are forced to become more creative if we're to become even a minescule as popular as the celebrities that beat the Twitter drum in the media spotlight. Ordinary everyday folk became famous for their work on Youtube videos, could the same be waiting for a Twitter user?
My "theory" for people that use Twitter and also happen to live in the normal, mundane world is to only submit text that is interesting and/or stirs conversation. Sometimes I'll conveniently forget and start turning my feed into a blog that started in 1999 and believes the whole world is reading and cannot wait for the next exciting update - notifications such as "just finished work - what a drag" and "urgh just sneezed and missed the handkerchief". Generally though I'd like to think that I'd Twit webpages of interest, snippets of news that I've heard on the grapevine in my field of enjoyment, or perhaps some words of wisdom/idiocy that I came upon.
If only it were that simple. It's easy to turn Twitter into a plug-machine for various projects, devoid of any attempt at communication with your followers. The problem with being an "ordinary" is our projects are often some sort of website, which we've all seen before, and that don't become anything after a few hundred hits. It's the famous people that use the service which have the exciting projects, because we all want to know what they're doing. It's here where the rules don't apply, because generally anything plugged by the likes of Kevin Spacey, Eddie Izzard, Steve Buscemi and Robert Llewellyn is likely to be worth seeing and reading into, the mundane updates are something to savour because of their special status in society.
It could be argued that to use Twitter effectively it would be wise to have a claim to fame beforehand. Those of us at work haven't a mobile at hand with which to text meaningful updates and as such, are forced to become more creative if we're to become even a minescule as popular as the celebrities that beat the Twitter drum in the media spotlight. Ordinary everyday folk became famous for their work on Youtube videos, could the same be waiting for a Twitter user?
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I use Twitter to help advertise my reviews, but mostly I use it the way I hink it was always meant to be used, that being as a portal for total bullshit. One of my most recent Twets (Christ I hate saying that), was about how the lower-case letter "t" is just a crucifix with an erection, for example.
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