Tell Me About Your Twitter Moment
A lively discussion on a design forum prompted me to make the following observation, which I felt deserved its own post, touting the power of Twitter. Here’s my story. So … tell me what drew you to Twitter?
I joined over a year ago and didn’t really see the point of it. I mean, do I really care that your two-year old just spit up her strained peas all over your Vera Wang silk scarf? But this past July I started using it as a tool to advise my web hosting clients about server issues. And the lightbulb moment, when I really understood how Twitter can galvanize a community was during Hurricane Ike. I live in Houston, Texas, which took a direct hit from Ike on September 13.
I was able to stay online via my Verizon cell phone while huddled in my hallway that night while a local TV station twittered what was going on around us. But it was during Ike’s aftermath that I had new respect for Twitter. That same TV station continued to twitter about useful pieces of information: Who has gasoline and how much it costs, who is handing out ice and bottled water, the status of electrical outages (they were citywide for days), which restaurants and grocery stores are open for business, etc. It was an invaluable resource for late-breaking very salient information. I’ve been hooked ever since!
Want to share what brought YOU to Twitter? Drop a comment below and don’t forget to leave me your Twitter ID!
I think everyone gets to that point where they start gaining followers because they talk less about their two-year-old, and more about issues that interest other people, too. My first follower changed everything about how I used Twitter, from archiving personal thoughts, to sharing interesting thoughts that were relevant to what people listening wanted to hear.
Twitter ID: http://twitter.com/kylecameron @kylecameron
You know? I don’t remember. Oh wait - I do! A client. I did a design for a client, and he asked me to do something to make his Twitter homepage look like it belonged with his newly redesigned site. I’d never heard of it before that - and to do it, i had to create my own account. After I finished the project (which literally took moments) I forgot about it - like my MySpace account.
I cannot, for the life of me, remember what brought me back. I *think* it was actually DJ (from the WDG list) - I think she mentioned something about updates via Twitter, and I remembered I had an account. I didn’t really get the point, but I tell ya, it’s been on almost every day since then. (And you’re already following me: brassblogs - but I thought I’d answer your question!)
Twitter ID: http://twitter.com/brassblogs @brassblogs
This interesting person from Texas kept chirping at me about how I had to get on Twitter. I couldn’t really see the point of it. All I knew about Twitter was that people used it to tell one another when they woke up, where they were driving, who was carving backwards “B’s” on their faces, and how many left turns they made before realizing they were driving around in circles.
But eventually, because it was, after all, a wonderful gal from Texas, I signed on.
In the beginning, it was just what I feared: lots of talk about nothing. Over several days, however, I started to follow more people and before long, there weren’t enough spare hours in the day for all the links to great articles I was getting.
I’m still working on building my own following — only 47 to go to the century mark. (Who will be next?) I’m hoping to eventually have enough California attorneys following me that when I run into something I’ve not seen before, one of them will tweetscue me. (Hmmm…maybe I shouldn’t try coining new terms.)
Twitter ID: http://twitter.com/rickhorowitz @rickhorowitz
If you like twitter, you have to try twitfave.com
Twitfave looks at twitter users favourites to tell you about the most interesting tweets and tell you who favourited your tweets!
http://www.twitfave.com