I think Twitter is dividing the world in two: people who absolutely don’t get it and people who do understand that Twitter is indeed pointless babble most of the time, but it’s also useful at times.
It took me a while before I understood the usefullness of Twitter. I mean, what could possible be useful about shooting off short 140 characters long messages in cyberspace right? And do I really need to know about what people have for lunch and what the weather is like where they live.
But maybe I can explain why Twitter is becoming more useful to me by giving you some recent examples.
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Bill shoot for Statuesque
Remember this very cool day I had watching Bill Nighy working on Statuesque?
I would never have known about that without Twitter. Neil Gaiman did mention this on Twitter and that’s how I found out about it. Very cool.
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Tickets for Sondre Lerche concert
The lovely Sondre Lerche is on Twitter. You must know him by now, (if not, here is his website) he made the soundtrack for Dan in Real Life. And Be Prepared to be Surprised is as you know one of my all time favourite songs.
Sondre is doing one intimate concert in London (before doing support gigs) and announced this concert on Twitter. Ticket has been bought and I wouldn’t have found out about it in time (as there is very limited amount of tickets) without Twitter. I look forward to see him live.
(Here is a video interview/acoustic song with him) -
Sixt Rent a car
I am off to California this weekend. Again? I can hear you ask. Well, California is not that far really.
But the thing was, we arrive there around 3pm by train on Saturday and wanted to rent a car to explore the Norfolk coast area. Turned out that all car rental firms in both Great Yarmouth and even Norwich close at 1pm on Saturdays. Trust me I have called them all. I was about to give up until I spotted Sixt car rentals on twitter. To make a long story short: I sent them a tweet, explained the situation, and wooptie they have sorted out a car for us, without us having to pay an after hours fee (as they close at 1pm too!), and they gave us a free upgrade to a better category car too! I love Sixt and I love Twitter.
- And when I was on my cycling trip last Sunday and ran into two closed cafes, I got several tweet replies, both feeling sorry for me (nice!) and also suggesting other cafes.
Those were just some examples of the usefullness of Twitter for me. I also use it
- to keep up to speed with the news: BBC world / BBC England, The Guardian are all there.
- to follow what friends are doing (Which is a bit like the Facebook status. You can set Twitter to automatically update your Facebook status too)
- to follow celebrities
Now not all celebs have something interesting to say (most of them haven’t), but here are some of the ones I follow:
The Brits:
- Stephen Fry – the absolute twitfather (also check his website)
- Eddie Izzard
- Bill Bailey
- Richard Branson
- Jonathan Ross
- Nick Frost, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg (The 3 Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz musketeers)
- J.K. Rowling
- Jamie Cullum
- Michael Sheen
- Andy Murray
- Tom Felton
- James Phelps (Both of Harry Potter fame)
The rest:
- Kevin Spacey
- Sondre Lerche
- Oprah
- Ellen Degeneres
- Ashton Kurcher (I know, I know!)
Dutch people:
- Youp – who seems to have turned into a Grumpy Old Man (of the wrong kind)
- Paul de leeuw
I know there are many more celebs out there, if I have forgotten some interesting ones let me know.
And to update my twitter status I use different tools:
- the twitter website
- Brizzly, a smarter online twitter client, which displays videos and photos inline (if you want an invite, let me know)
- Tweetdeck, a cool twitter client (which also integrates Facebook) you can install on your pc
- Swift, a twitter app installed on my Android phone
So are you on Twitter? (I am here.) Or do you think it is a waste of time?
Comments
Have your say
And here’s why you are the Guru and we are just mere students…
And I totally agree ; Stephen Fry IS the Twitfather ;o)
It’s probably more like you people have a life and I don’t! :)
And indeed Stephen Fry is great. I also like his website and love his gadget reviews! And his rantings on twitter are most amusing.
You’re so right.
Many people I know don’t understand why I twitter.
It’s easy and cool and fun and quick and…
I think I used more than 140 characters here.
I read tweets from twittering friends, to see what they are doing and thinking. And I find it amusing! :-) I just wish I had the time and self-discipline to twitter…
As for celebrities – Bryan Adams (one of my idols, back in the early 90s) is also on Twitter! :-) He does not post a lot of tweets, though.
I must admit I think that Twitter is just another timewasting activity and yet I do read your Twitters on here and sometimes click onto other links from yours but no I don’t think I’ll be signing up;)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/CowPie-JeffVanuga.JPG
(just my opinion)
I might have to take back part of my comment as if I hadn’t read your Twit (or whatever it’s called) I wouldn’t have seen that Bill Nighy and Jeremy Northam are going to be in a new Poliakoff film!! Yippee! Do you know when it’s out and is it TV or movie?
@Grigorisgirl – yes Release date: 20th of November, in the cinema.
Trailer: http://www.billnighy.info/2009/09/29/glorious-39-trailer-with-the-glorious-bill-nighy/
And apart from Bill it also has David Tennant, Julie Christie, Christopher Lee, Eddie Redmayne, Charlie Cox and Romola Garai. Cracking cast!
Thanks Ingrid! Looks like that is one that will go down well at work.
Thanks for mentioning Sondre Lerche! I love his cd’s but didn’t know he’s a ‘twitteraar’ too!
Hi there!
Just began to follow you on twitter.. you seem to get it ;)
Love love love Twitter! Will follow the father of Twitter in a bit too! Curious now.. haha!
Could you send me an invite to Brizzly? that can come in handy!
Thanks! & Keep up the good work!
Mirjam
@Sonnetje: you are welcome! He is a very regular twitterer, so he is fun to follow!
@Mirjam – Stephen Fry (the one I called the twitfather) is a British comedian, actor, writer, tv maker, gadget freak. He is very British, but his tweets are often entertaining! :)
How could anyone not want a Twitter account after reading this?! Seriously, you make far better use of Twitter than I do… I still love it though. ;)
Not much to do with Twitter, but you mentioning Stephen Fry reminded me of this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKY
Hope you like it. :)
@Michelle that is a very funny sequence. And it wouldn’t surprise you to hear that that kakapao is on Twitter too:
http://twitter.com/SiroccoKakapo
:)