Twitter…how are you using it?

Late last year I decided to find out a bit more about Twitter. A few of the Brighton crowd had been hassling me and to be honest it was time get with the program.

So Twitter…well where do you start?

Well, there isn’t much to it. But that is the beauty. Its simplicity is its main feature. It is entertaining and informative. It provides me with nice little snippet of news, coding stuff or just plain amusement. I have even start having conversations on it. It seems many twitterers use it for direct communication, rather than just micro-blogging. It’s more subtle than a Facebook feed and more personal, people actually took time (all be it a modicum) to compose something.

What I really like about it, is it fills in the gaps on peoples thoughts. You can find out what makes people tick. Of course what is wrong with face to face conversation? But it is a great ice-breaker.

It has got me thinking long term what Twitter might be used for, and how we might use it the future. People have announced the launch of their blogs on there. It’s great way to get some (quick) feedback on a web app. What I think it could be really good at is extending web communities outside their normal environment. Enhancing the community experience. Whilst users are out an about, they can get a quick ‘fix’ of what is going on.

For effeffelle I am thinking we could use it as a results service as well as a means of keeping people in touch with their teams. As people sign up they could opt in to updates via Twitter and using the API we could feed results, or transfer requests or bids for players in to their feeds. Conversely we could have a generic effeffelle feed broadcasting general site activity to whoever (presumably our users) is interested.

Now I wouldn’t use it for mission critical purposes. But all this got me thinking. On a commercial basis there is not reason why we can’t integrate it with our auction system. I haven’t given this too much thought, but other than perhaps privacy issues, there is perhaps good reason for alerting to people to when they have been outbid on lot items. Or could we alert them when new auctions are put on line?

I think for the time being Twitter is going be confined to the more Geekier amongst us. It will take time to penetrate more general use. But I have heard some good stories on its usage.