Twitter!

[Pleiades Rising]

Okay, I had to edit this since I [i]finally[/i] noticed that this thread was updated and attributed to me (which, originally was started by someone else in a universe far far away long long ago.) So, I guess this will serve as an all-purpose Twitter thread. Subjects could include: Do you use Twitter often? What do you use it for? Is it even worth having one? etc. It's not limited to these, so just go ahead and write anything Twitter related, even if you just want to give out your Twitter profile!

I'll leave my earlier remarks (marked with *) intact, as those are the reasons why I made an account there in the first place. I think it's a useful tool for news and information gathering.

*I recently made a Twitter account so I could keep up with the latest greatest breaking news flashes. Seriously, today I spent quite a bit of time watching the situation in Tripoli and following Twitter updates (I just type in or find the relevant hash tags for that stuff). Of course, you have to be careful when analyzing those situations, especially when there's often no way to verify any of it until days, weeks, or months later. That said, I find using Twitter to be helpful when trying to get the whole vibe or zeitgeist going on in some social movement, even if it's from an outsider's perspective only. If Twitter went down during some mass social movement, then, sadly, that would somewhat limit how I could keep track of an event in realtime. In sum, I use Twitter to get the sense of what's going on at some event, while always carefully keeping a critical distance. If it went down, then I'd rely on other methods, limiting how I gather information and form an fuller opinion. Edited October 4, 2011 by Pleiades Rising

[Shinmaru]

I've got a [url="http://twitter.com/#!/Shinmaru"]Twitter account[/url] right here! Mainly I use it to interact with anime fans, because the fandom is quite active on Twitter. It's especially fun if you keep up with shows as they air in Japan. Kind of crazy how many different conversations can go on at one time. I do find it interesting as a tool to keep up with news, too, although it's a double-edged sword there. It's so easy for Twitter to be abused and for anyone to post whatever, and for it to trend. The immediacy is enticing -- I doubt many people run tweets past their editors. You just post it and go. Great if something is true; Twitter is among the fastest avenues to get news out to people. But if something is false or misleading? Pretty dangerous.

[Boo]

The only twitter account I use is the [url="http://twitter.com/#!/obpodcast"]OB Podcast twitter account[/url]! Even though it's been out of work for a while again. :^D

I'm not a twitter fan in general. Everything loses it's funny on twitter, and there's too many people posting too much stuff and it all gets sort of chaotic for me within five seconds. If anything in that direction, I'd prefer Facebook where people just reply to each other's statuses in a kind of seperate conversation kind of way.

[Pleiades Rising]

I do agree with the idea what some of what passes for news on Twitter can be iffy. However, I think I've quickly learned to filter out (or be carefully cautious of) those more questionable news tweets. One thing that I've been thinking about lately is how accurate those live-tweets are when some big breaking news event is going on. In fact, depending on who you follow on Twitter, you won't really learn new info by tracking something with hash-tags. Here's why. Most of the people or entities I follow on Twitter are official news sources or outlets, with far more resources than the average person has at hand. So, if I'm following, say, CNN, Reuters, and other sources like them, then I already have an idea what's going on somewhere. But what I've noticed in some cases is that when you do a hash-tag search-and-follow, you more often than not get little more than people repeating previously published news items from the sources I've already named. In other words, it's not much different than getting [i]opinions [/i]from people sitting around watching the news on tv. And getting second-hand info from essentially a spectator watching tv or reading an article is far different than getting information from someone actually participating in the event. I have to say that I'm fine with opinions, and that's consistent with my earlier comments on trying understand what some majority or specific groups think about something. But as far as getting more information, I can't rely too much on opinion based on what someone's read or seen on official news sources.

However, I do have to qualify this: when the event is ongoing in a consistent and (fairly) controlled manner, understanding what's going on there might rely less on conventional news sources than in other contexts. And if you punch in #OccupyWallStreet, you'll get tweets from people actually there, conveying what's going on. In rare cases like this one, you do get information from [i]what the people in the event itself[/i] are doing and thinking. But again, here too I'm cautious to balance this out with more mainstream news media, varying from left to the right and anywhere in between. In any event, keeping up with live news on Twitter can be sketchy if you're not careful. Edited October 8, 2011 by Pleiades Rising

[Dragon Warrior]

I use my [url="http://www.twitter.com/iindie"]Twitter Account[/url] sparingly to update people I don't know on my life. Or so it would seem. I'm followed by a vast number of folks I've never met. I do have friends on there and they occasionally respond to my witty banter, but I think I [b]could[/b] probably [b]live without Twitter.[/b]