Are you ready for Twitter?

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Bryan Hudson 0 Comments

Unless you've been living under a rock, you have heard about Twitter. During the recent news blackout from Iran, Twitter became one of the few sources of raw information coming out of the country. Over the past months, I have moved from being a critic to becoming a proponent of the medium. I once considered Twitter a silly distraction, based on examples I had seen.

Twitter is an Internet-based micro-blogging and information sharing service. Using the model of mobile phone text messaging, Twitter limits messages, or so-called "tweets," to 140 characters. The service allows you to "follow" persons and information sources of interest to you. Persons may also follow you based on your content. There is also a very useful search capability within Twitter.

Of course, "interesting" content is a relative term. I prefer to receive and post tweets that consist of brief insights or informational items followed by a web address. Ministry, technology and educational media are my primary interests for using Twitter. (http://twitter.com/BryanHudson)

By using software to organize the information and exercising prudence in selecting people to follow, Twitter can become a gold mine of relevant, timely information.