Do you Twitter?

posted by kathy

I don't twitter often - just two or three times a day, unless I'm bored or feeling frivolous. Sometimes I don't twitter for a few days at a time. And I always twitter on my computer - never on a mobile phone.

You may know what I'm talking about - or you may have heard, seen or read something on the news. Broadcasters spent a few days saying that twitter was the big new thing in communications - and then, as usual, they forgot about it.

Twitter is a means of keeping in touch with people through very short communications. The limit is 140 characters including spaces - shorter than some text messages. The idea is that people post answers to the question "What are you doing?" and use this to keep in touch with one another. It's fun trying to get a message into so short a space. And of course, twitter invites the answer my brother gave when he first twittered: "What do you think I'm doing? I'm typing in this message in an attempt to avoid working."

But Twitter has other possibilities. It could be used for very short poems or six-word stories. I'd like to try that, though I haven't yet.

It's also a quick way of keeping in touch with organisations or campaigns if they sign up to twitter and, given the mobile phone facility, it's got a great deal of potential.

I haven't found campaigns on twitter yet - do you know of any that are using it? I've signed up to follow 10 Downing Street, which is often immensely boring. I'm not that interested in the Prime Minister's visit to the Eden Project, although I wish I could go there again.

More useful are the short updates from QuakerQuaker, a United States round-up of many Quaker blogs. (We're not listed on the blogroll.) I hardly ever get round to checking out the blog-site but every so often twitter alerts me to a story or reflection I want to follow.

So are you twittering? Do you have any tips about who to follow or how twitter can be used? Would you like to see Beeston Quakers on twitter? Or would you like to use twitter more informally, to keep up with friends (or Friends)?

I'm kazbel on twitter, by the way. So far Beeston Quakers hasven't taken to twittering as a Meeting - do you think they should?