Thinking about getting a Twitter account and I know other Beoworlders use Facebook etc., but no one ever mentions Twitter. Have been persuaded by my girlfriend to try it out as she's been on there for ages, and is tiring of my reliance on either smoke signals or carrier pigeons as a means of conveying messages between us. Does anyone here have an account? If so what do you think of it??

Some friends of mine use it, but they never seen to go beyond messages such as: ''I'm in the supermarket'', "It is raining'', ''The dog is sick'' and ''I'm having a drink''. It's such a hype in The Netherlands that many users just want to be on Twitter but don't know what to do with it and tend to be rather boring.

I use twitter all the time but I mostly follow some friends and companies in which I am interested like Bang & Olufsen.  However B&O doesn't tweet much.  I guess they haven't figured it out yet.

I use texting for messages with my wife.  Personal messages on twitter can be a problem if you are not careful.  The best way is to use the personal message function on twitter which works well.

I guess it's not for everyone.  My 29 year old nephew thinks twitter is silly and a waste of time.

 

I found twitter very amusing for one evening, then became bored and have never looked at it since. A bit like facebook and other such sites. If I want to be in contact with someone I will call them, I dont need to know what some one that I havent spoken to for 15 years did on their holiday.

beaker:

I found twitter very amusing for one evening, then became bored and have never looked at it since. A bit like facebook and other such sites. If I want to be in contact with someone I will call them, I dont need to know what some one that I havent spoken to for 15 years did on their holiday.

I agree twitter can be annoying but if you narrow the range of who and what you follow it can be a good source of information.  For example, there are several B&O dealers in the UK on twitter.  I looked at a couple of the UK sites and they announce some special offers or upcoming events.  I have just started following Hawaiian Airlines because I am going to vacation in Hawaii in January.  In one of the tweets, there was a special low fare and some useful information.

When I first tried twitter I was bombarded by people from everywhere and hated it.  I think there are also huge privacy issues.  However I setup a new account and chose only those things I wish to follow.  You're right about getting inane tweets from people you don't know or don't want to know.  A telephone is still a good way to contact people.

I really enjoy Facebook a lot and am on it far too much! Twitter is absolutely boring. I tried my best to give it a go but I gave up.....rather watch the cd track light flashing on my cd player.

 

I've found it's a fairly good source for news and website updates.  Sort of like RSS except with slightly more eclectic things on it and with the addition of friends posting to it.  Certainly I don't have time for facebook and it's games/groups/polls etc, I just think it's there for people to kill time with and avoid work or getting out the house and doing something.  As for my twitter stuff, I'm scottishcalvin if anyone's interested, I post musings/jokes every few days

If you use Firefox there is a little app I use called Echofon which makes twitter less of a chore and quite a useful source of information, if you select your contacts carefully! I like the obscure stuff like twisst (International Space Station flypast alerts) and all sorts of other stuff. I hate the wofflers - don't want to know what people are eating for breakfast tbh...

I bit the bullet and got an account. Thanks for the advice people :) I'll try and add you Calvin once I havw worked out how to do it. The carrier pigeons were much more straightforward than this, and as for the smoke signals, well.... Should anyone be interested in all things Sheffieldy, then: @FatYellowBear is all you need to know.

i think the trick is to be picky with who you follow, then it can be very informative, delete the people who tell you when their breathing, that's just not interesting, unless you've got a massive crush on them! :)