Friday, January 29, 2010

Weekend Assignment #303: To Tweet or not to tweet

That title seemed more clever in my head.

This week's assignment comes from Carly this week with Karen putting in the extra credit. It was a true team effort.

Weekend Assignment #302: Do you Tweet? Why or why not?

Yes, I do tweet. See over there on the right? You can read all the clever things I have to say right on this very page. Well, you'd have to re-load the page a lot since it only shows the last two. Maybe it would be better to actually follow me, but that is your choice. I'm not as interesting as the great Ashton Kutcher, but if you like to read stupid comments about TV or the occasional 80's reference, come on over.

I started back in 2008 when Florinda convinced me to join Twitter. She had been thinking about it for a while as well. By letting her go first I had a guaranteed follower. I didn't want to talk to myself on the thing. (As a side note, I think that is the first time I've ever spelled 'guaranteed' right on the first try. I always screw it up.)

Now that I've been on Twitter I'm kind of addicted to it. (I can hear Jenn saying, "Kind of!?" in my head right now.) I follow a lot of behind the scenes people from TV shows, some authors, and other blogging-type people I've met through this place.

I know there are a lot of people who think Twitter is stupid or only for self-important people, and they can be right, but it can be useful at times, too. I've learned about several things first through Twitter; earthquakes, plane crashes, etc. Not to mention that J.D Salinger had died. I've never read Catcher in the Rye, but still, it was important. If used right it can be fun and informative and full of spambots, but there isn't much you can do about that.

Extra Credit: If you do use Twitter, how many people follow you? How many do you follow?

I don't follow too many people, about 150, I don't think I could keep track of many more than that. I have about 80 followers, which probably turns out to be 12 real people. Maybe 15.

If you 'll excuse me, I need to see if anyone has posted anything good on Twitter.

4 comments:

Cookie said...

Who are all these fake people? Actors or something? ;^)

Mike said...

Cookie: Hee. :)

No, mostly fake people put out there to just re-tweet stuff to get you to go to sites. Or phish to get your password.

Florinda said...

I skipped this week's assignment because I'm trying to cut back on my Twitter time. But I'm glad you don't blame me for the fact you got sucked in :-). (And that @RamsesTMagnum character that follows you IS a real person, believe it or not - I can vouch for him.)

Karen Funk Blocher said...

You've just reminded me of something I like about it - the immediacy of the flow of information when something happens. Election? Disaster? Fans spot filming taking place? Boom! Twitter is there.