Twitter presentation to staff

http://twitter.com/home

When was it launched
October 2006. By April 2007, 94 000 users – it is one of the fastest growing phenomena on the Internet. Critics mock the banality of most tweets and question whether we really need such an assault upon our powers of concentration. Pontin, J. (2007) From many tweets, one loud voice on the internet The New York Times Apr. 22, 2007

Who uses it
Not everyone uses email – trends indicate that IM is becoming the communication of choice for teens/young adults – portability, immediacy, chitty chat, informal talk. But it isn’t just teenagers who use this service. Active ‘fan-club’ is seeing continuing development of applications. Twitter is still very much in its infancy and in a process of evolution.

What is its purpose

• It’s about immediacy, portability and accessibility of receiving messages on a variety of devices.
• Essentially a net-based chat room filled with your friends – or the world if you prefer
• 140 characters or less – succinct – able to be sent in a single text message
• You can elect to send and receive messages any number of ways--through Twitter's website, through your mobile phone (via SMS), through your IM client, through RSS, or through a number of third-party tools that have emerged to help people access and interact with the Twittersphere.
• It’s a microblogging application, a instant messenger, a social presence notifier – “I’m off to the movies”
• microblog as something similar to a constant mind-dump e.g. “have you seen this article?”
• Can be set to private
  

Difference between blogging and microblogging
A prolific blogger may update their blog once very few days, a microblooger may post several updates in a single day. – Java et al. (2007) Why we twitter: understanding microblogging usage and communities. Conference Aug. 12, 2007

In recent months Google has purchased Jaicoo which was a similar product to Twitter.

Twittervision:http://twittervision.com/ shows tweeters across the world in real time.
Twitter 'language' has evolved from the twitter community i.e.
Tweeting: The act of posting to Twitter
Tweetaholism: Twitter as an addiction that it difficult to control.

To see how some libraries are using Twitter:
http://twitter.com/slqld
http://twitter.com/librarycongress
http://twitter.com/Cleveland_PL
http://twitter.com/askundergrad
http://twitter.com/LPI_Library
http://twitter.com/Narromine

The challenge for SLQ is to fully investigate Twitter

• understand it features and functions
• explore its potential uses and
• map this to our diverse client groups and our service delivery aims

This will determine if Twitter can assist SLQ in providing information to or access to information for our users.


Presentation: 28 Nov 2007

Postscript: May 2009
The State Library of Queensland created a Twitter account in April 2009 http://www.twitter.com/slqld. More information is on SLiQnet at http://intra.slq.qld.gov.au/home/how/commun/twitter
99 Essential twitter tools and applications - from Smashing Magazine

See also presentation June 2009 and Recommended Resources for further information.