Week 3: Twitter

Kinda tough to comment on, since I'm already a big user of Twitter and it has infiltrated itself under my radar to the point where I don't really consider it or question it anymore. It was interesting (ok, possibly only to me) that we didn't jump on board with this when Corin, Mr Earlier Adopter, tried to get us to use it as a work-tracking tool a year or more ago. Possibly because we were imagining the wrong use for it - for us, anyway - as it is the sort of tool that has 101 uses, depending on your inclinations. I think Corin envisaged we would tweet when heading out of the office, to leave a record of our whereabouts. From our actual useage, I'd say we're happier using it as a means of informally celebrating whatever best pleases us - quotes from family members that need to be shared, photos of lunch, book recommendations, inanities in movies we're watching, celebrity news, motivational sayings... whatever, really. Minutiae? Sure. But it's very easy to turn away from the ongoing dialogues when you're busy, and then clock back in when you've got a moment and want to 'hear' a friendly voice dish on whatever's floating their boat in realtime.

Hmm, work use? Well, if you update our work tweetstream and you use bit.ly to do it, you can't help but see that somewhere, *someone* cares what we're tweeting. We won't set any records, but I'd say there's obviously a market for what we're selling. Personally, I liked trying to 'sell' the reviews via Twitter... it's just one more venue to advertise what we've got. Marketing speech??? For a LIBRARY? Yes indeed. We're trying, after all, to talk people out of their 'spare' time, and into a habit of engaging, learning, reading, whatever. And this is a place where a lot of people *are*, so this is one more place for us to be. It provides a way of poking info about collections and events at people who might otherwise be too busy, too lazy, too disinterested to actually come and navigate the website. I love the idea that we're not waiting for people to come to us and find what they need to know - we're going out there and dropping it in their lap, if they prefer. And also, I think we're showing willing to learn, to adapt, to be in new digital spaces. To do otherwise is to show a contempt for what is possibly a growing section of our community who are living a chunk of their life online - to say, hey, your lifestyle is weird and we don't get your priorities. If it's sustainable - and Tosca's possibly the best judge of that - then let's take it to the people.