Twitter, tweets and tweeple - Aah! Not twits.

Have to admit if it had not been for 23 Things in all likelihood I wouldn't have signed up for Twitter. I knew little about it but had heard all the celebrity talk of people posting what they ate for lunch etc. and thought what a waste of time, I'm not getting into that! However, I am now beginning to see it has value. In particular I can see the benefit of libraries being able to share links and provide very brief updates without expending large amounts of time and energy. I also saw the fact it can be used via SMS as an advantage though am now wondering how significant a benefit this actually is when I consider how many people now carry pocket size devices of various types which allow them to access the internet? Being able to search tweets by subject is arguably a useful facility though sometimes the results may be so large in number that information is found more easily through a careful selection of people / places / lists "followed".

I read with interest the further reading which stated that currently libraries tend to use Twitter as a broadcast mechanism rather than interactively. Though I can see the benefit of library-user interaction I would be slightly concerned about the lack of filtering. There is surely a risk of receiving unhelpful responses as a result of the low character limit and tendency when using such tools to shoot off an immediate response on a matter which one might normally give much more consideration. Also, of interest was the issue of future potential charging for the service which once established would in all likelihood have to be continued, even at an unknown cost. How easy would it be to find a similar service at no / less cost that was compatible with what the library had already established?

On a more personal level I found some of the terms rather off-putting. I loathe the term 'tweeple' and found the idea of stalking (oops, no sorry following) a bit odd. Unlike on facebook where friend requests can be rejected I initially thought anyone could follow the tweets of a person / institution and was concerned about the potential of ending up being associated with the views of followers, who would be listed as such, who held views that you / your institution wouldn't want to be associated with. Through the further reading, however, I realised, with some relief, that you can pick and choose who you want to follow you.