Webcoda Blog

Does Twitter live up to the hype? As with most things that depends on who you are, what you do and how you do it.

A lot of people who have tried Twitter have written it off as a waste of time citing headlines such as Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble'.

That may be true but 80% of TV and pop music are rubbish but there is still enough decent stuff that we can just take what we like and ignore the rest.

This is why I believe Twitter works…

You can follow only people you want to hear from.

I pick up lot’s of great news and tips about web development, current affairs, politics etc because I follow people who are in the know. There are no ads and if someone is wasting my time I stop following them.

The information comes in small bite size chunks

We live in the era of the sound bite. So many people only skim headlines anyway as so much news is free online. A lot of the time a Tweet is a link to a story. If you like a Tweet, you can click on the link and read the full story.

From a marketers point of view it is easier to Tweet than to create newsletters.

Dell has made over 3 million dollars from Twitter related sales. It costs nothing but someone’s time. Think about the effort that goes into sending newsletters. Newsletters is the tried and true method for keeping customers engaged but you cant send more than one marketing newsletter every few days without it looking like Spam. Twitter can be used to have a continuous dialog with customers reminding them about you and your services or products.

As a consumer, the information comes to me

I don’t have to go looking for the news I want. It arrives by itself, tailored to my interests.

Twitter is a real time barometer of what’s going on

Use tools like TwitScoop to see what is happening in the world in real time. We no longer live in an age where only marketers can spot the trends. Now anyone can.

Twitter is an amazing tool and definitely will have it’s place on the internet for a while to come. It can also be a big time suck.
After all if you listen to Tim Ferris, the author of The 4-hour work week we shouldn’t even be listening or watching the news. Oddly enough though, even he is on Twitter. - http://twitter.com/tferriss
I guess if you only work 4 hours a day, you probably have plenty of time to spend on Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter are the most well known of the web 2.0 apps but there are many more cool apps out that may suit you better.

My personal interests are Tech, Politics, Business, Current Affairs and Comedy. I travel by train each day so I keep informed by subscribing to podcasts. I have an IPhone so I use ITunes to find podcasts and with one click I subscribe and as new podcasts are published they automatically downloaded and synch to my IPhone when I next connect. There are so many great Podcasts and they are all free and they come on video and audio varieties.

If you want to check out some of my favourite podcasts here are a few..

• Jake and Amir (Comedy)
• Digital Life by CNET Australia
• Digital Planet
• The Economist
• Larry King Podcast

I am also a big fan of Wired magazine. No other publication seems to be so ahead of the curve, have such great writing and is presented so beautifully. Wired also produces Podcasts. One of them is called the Hopkinson Report, a Podcast made by the marketing guy from Wired, Jim Hopkinson. 
I was brushing my teeth yesterday morning and listening to the latest edition (I have an IPod dock alarm clock in my bathroom) where he interviewed the creator of a start up called Redwirewhich is a site for entrepreneurs to share experiences, stories and perhaps meet up in person. I decided to take a look and see if there were any groups that might be in my area that meet up to discuss running a small business. Unfortunately it’s early days and Sydney doesn’t have too many members but the site looks pretty cool.

Undeterred the Podcast had also mentioned a site called meetup.com, so I checked to see if they have any groups that would interest me. I found this one - http://www.meetup.com/SydneyOnlineBusinessOwners/ which happens to meet up right near were I work on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. I signed up and will be going tomorrow.

The point is that even if Twitter and Facebook aren’t your cup of tea that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a site that may suit your needs.