TWITTER. I was Wrong. Damn it!

Over a year ago, I tried out a funny little web application called Twitter.

After playing with it briefly, I decided that it didn’t really make sense, and so I forgot about it.

After all, why would you want to send out little 140 character messages about what you were doing?

The buzz about twitter kept going, and recently turned into a deafening roar.

After taking another look at it, I realised that I had made a mistake about twitter. It’s actually VERY useful if you use it properly. Especially now it’s now reached the point where SO MANY great people are using it.

The following video explains the basics very well.

Try to visualise Twitter as being a "backwards" sms message. Instead of sending it to people YOU choose, you send it out for anyone to receive – if they want it.

So – a twitter user only receives messages from someone they want to "follow". They could follow 1 person, or thousands. (Or if you want to experience some insanity, click on the button that lets you look at the ENTIRE stream of twitter messages. (There’s thousands every minute. This is NOT the way to choose people to follow.)

Communication through twitter is instantaneous, and more convenient than email, phone calls, etc.

The messages you send out can be public (ie anyone can follow you) or private (You have to approve people who receive them) .

Hmmm. Do you think that this could be useful as an instant messaging system for your employees scattered all over the globe? Hint, Hint.)

I recommend that you give twitter a try. It only takes a minute or two to sign up for an account at www.twitter.com

Then you can start following people. To follow me, go to www.twitter.com/EricGraudins

It will seem pointless at first, and you’ll probably wonder what it is all about. Or you may be smarter than I was, and recognise the potential instantly. (Hint: I follow Richard Branson on Twitter. And he follows me.  This has benefits for me, but perhaps not too much for him )

Have a play with it. Look at the people who follow me, and who I follow. If any of them interest you, you can follow them too, and start receiving their tweets.

As an example, theres a couple of journalists I follow. And I can see who THEY follow. And follow some of them too. Which means that I get information from some of the same sources that the journos use. Instantly.

Do you think that YOU could benefit from instant information from some of the leading names in YOUR industry. Perhaps your competitors are tuned into these sources of info, and you are not.

Of course, it’s a balancing act sometimes. If a person sends mainly inane chatter, then I’ll stop following them. If they send  interesting things and some good resources, then a bit of inane chatter from them is fine.

When you "tweet", you’re basically a radio station sending out information. If you’ve ever listened to shortwave radio, you’ll know that there’s a lot of noise out there. And sometimes tuning in to good stations is difficult. If you’re hearing garbage, find better ones that suit you better. And on twitter, there’s millions of them outto choose from.

Just trust me on this one, and try it out. I’ll make another blog posting about Twitter in a few days which you’ll understand better if you’ve used it.

Cheers,

Eric G.

P.S. So why the "Damn It"? Because I’ve lost 12 months of building up and developing a range of worldwide contacts in a way that would be difficult, if not impossible, using any other method.