Saturday 4 July 2009

Twitter rocks!



I have been neglecting this blog long enough now. Time for another post - long overdue! Aware of the repetition, I feel I once again have to praise the social media revolution called Twitter. I wasn't quite sure what to make of this phenomenon in the beginning, but on the recommendation of my son, thought I'd give it a go.

And - boy, am I glad I did. It has given me material enough to write a book, should I want to. That should probably be a 'Twook'. The latest episode would tell about how I became the first ever customer for Tweetalondoncab, met an American 'Social Catalyst and Twitter Guru' at a Central London 'tweet-up', and also how an armchair Blur in Hyde Park dream became reality. 
And if that wasn't enough, I have also just arranged a meeting with an MP, to discuss flood defences. Later on in July, I'm invited to a tweet-up in Lincolnshire. The tweeter in question visited London some weeks ago and we managed to meet up at King's Cross for 10 minutes. Speaking of books... he spent the whole of Father's day to write a book on Twitter, with 140 characters at the time. No - he is not mad, but he did this in memory of his late son who died last year. 

Twitter has meant new friends on the photo-sharing website Flickr, as well. There are some great photographers out there in the real world. Cameras on mobile phones might come across as an unnecessary 'extra' when all you want to do is making phone calls. But - it is a daunting thought that so many people around the country capture so many moments in life and post them for others to enjoy. 

Whenever I feel homesick (for Sweden), I tweet one of my friends over there. She kindly tweets me pictures and updates in both Swedish and English. I'm sure it confuses the hell out of my English speaking tweeps.

So - I'm sticking to Twitter. The only sad bit is that many people who don't 'get' Twitter think it is another Facebook or even worse - some kind of dating site. It couldn't be further from the truth. The thing is, you make of twitter what you want. People on Twitter - also known as 'tweeps' - respect each other. There's a lot of fun banter going on in between the more serious tweet debates. 

My impression is, you trust your fellow tweeps. I give you an example: I just sent a cheque to another person as payment for the Blur tickets. We had built up a good relation between us so she just said "I trust you. I send you the tickets and you send me the cheque later."
Besides, if you don't trust someone, you can always 'unfollow', as us tweeps say when we stop following one and other. You will notice there's a lot of Twitter lingo involved, but you soon get the hang of both hashtags, trends, twitpics, and RTs. And the odd twat!

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