Where does Twitter fit into all this?

This, of course, is the world of social networking and communication.

I have to confess, that as is my style, I arrived somewhat belatedly in the rather confusing world of Twitter. I have a habit of that, but equally tend to make it my mission to embrace new things once I’ve worked out how they work and what they’re for, and to be honest that usually doesn’t take long if you put your mind to it. I think the jargon is “late but enthusiastic adopter”.

But here is where I’m already struggling. I am not convinced I know where Twitter comes in. It’s not that I don’t understand the concept: that’s simple enough - 140 characters to post or “tweet” your innermost feelings and reactions; a host of celebrities from A to Z classes, often mindlessly twittering away all day long, though I have to suspect that some of them employ a member of their PR staff to do so on their behalf. Or does Lady Gaga really sit on her iPhone and type it all on herself?

A moot point I suspect and one that really doesn’t matter terribly much. If you want to believe it’s her you can. I’m not too fussed one way or the other.

It does all seem a bit overwhelming at first to be honest, but with a bit of hard work you can pick up the basics in no time. And that includes the use of the # key as a sort of label, grouping keywords in a searchable manner. There’s trends – basically a list of the top keywords, twitpics – a means of posting an abbreviated link to a photo – remember those 140 characters! You can message people directly, re-tweet what they have said – a useful means of spreading information or interesting blogs for instance. Then there’s #ff where you promote some of your favourite Twitterers, on Fridays!

You can follow pretty much whoever you want – I do have a small number of friends who tweet, but only a couple on a regular basis. You can follow celebrities, popular television shows, or makes of cars – the list is pretty much endless.

Twitter is how I came across the world of bloggers, or rather re-discovered it, as a couple of my friends have blogged for quite some time. That was one of the most interesting aspects to me and although I can’t say I read all of their blogs all of the time, a lot of them are pretty interesting stuff.

Quite a few of the people I follow are political and here it seems Twitter comes into its own. The last Scottish Parliament elections were a splendid example of this, with the different parties punting their points of view, with varying degrees of success it has to be said. In my, naturally unbiased, view the SNP won this particular political contest hands down, and one of the more interesting observations I made was how the party message stayed consistent no matter who was tweeting it at what level of involvement. Some claimed the 2007 elections were the first real “internet” contests but my own view is that last year the internet came into its own for the first time in any substantial way.

Back to the “what’s it for” question and here it really depends on what you want it to be for. My brother for instance, never tweets anything, but follows the tweets of others. I myself tend to go through fits and starts, and often don’t log in for days at a time. It’s an instant source of news, of the more cutting edge variety than is to be found on the mainstream media pages. You want to know about gadgets for instance, and many do, then you follow the likes of the “Gadget Show”. Music, politics, television, history...the list is endless.

You choose who to follow, and then less often in my experience, they may choose to follow you too. Not that that side of things really matters unless you are one of those insecure people who keeps a daily tab on how many followers you have. I have to confess it can irritate me if I do notice my list has dropped a few, but (so far) I’ve not really taken the time to scroll through them to find out who “un-followed” me. Think friends and “un-friending” on Facebook if that helps you grasp the concept, though it’s not entirely the same.

Talking of Facebook you can link the two so that anything you put on Twitter appears on your Facebook newsfeed too. My local SNP councillor does that, and I have to say it was fascinating as a result, to be able to follow the progress of “Baby Nat” throughout the Holyrood election campaign, bringing back many memories of my own “Baby Nat” in the 1990s! The beauty of linking is presumably that your message reaches a wider audience, but personally I found the intrusion of the @s and #s of Twitter a trifle annoying over on Facebook so I unlinked the two fairly early on.

You can have a conversation of sorts on Twitter, and indeed two of my friends do just that. It’s not as easy to follow as a Facebook one though, but it is for instance, largely how I communicate with either of them.

And the bottom line is that communication is what it’s all about. Like anything on the internet there’s a side order of spam, but that’s easily removed. And just like any other social network, some people post too often for my liking and their own good. But because you can’t “hide” tweets from an individual, or at least if you can I can’t work out how to, and to be honest what would be the point, then you either put up with it or remove them from your list.

There is some kind of etiquette, or is it ”twitter-ette” about such things but on the whole I’m not convinced anyone follows it, and I have from time to time, un-followed someone simply due to the volume of tweets.

So back to the start and where does Twitter fit in. I’m not sure I can really shed any light on that to be honest. It appeals to some more than others, but that’s true of Facebook, lager and marmite too.

It can be fun, and if you approach it in that manner, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed! I hope my short journey through the world of Twitter might just inspire one or two of you to give it a whirl!

Facebook shenanigans!

Over the last week or so my Facebook newsfeed, like many of yours I expect, has been filled with posts initially about the new newsfeed format, and laterally about paying for the site, not to mention the forthcoming “timeline”.

To deal with the second point first, and not like me to do things back to front you may be thinking, it at times beggared belief to see those people who actually fell for the nonsense that a multi-billion dollar organisation would suddenly start asking us all to start paying to continue to use it.

Despite the fact that right under the log-in section it says “It’s free and always will be”, it was amusing, but at the same time alarming, to see so many panic-stricken posts about the matter. More amusing were the couple of spoof posts, one or two of which I was cheeky enough to copy, totally scotching these groundless rumours, including one which ended with “But you can get it for free if you send your bank details to gulliblebastards@hotmail.com”!

I did actually see someone (not one of my friends before you all start wondering and trawling through your own newsfeeds) asking what she should do about having sent someone her credit card details in order to pay, but was undecided as to whether she was having fun or genuinely dumb! An extra in TOWIE was my eventual conclusion!

But enough of this nonsense (which of course is all that it was in the first place) and back to the newsfeed story.

Somewhat belatedly, as is my fashion, I first discovered the “Lists” function, and what an excellent idea it is! I already have one for the friends I made in China, one for Dundee United, one for those friends I’m actually really interested in keeping up with (only 12 of those!), and even one I cheekily called “Drama!” – There is only actually one person in that, although he does have two profiles, but no in his case I don’t actually follow his reasoning.

You can have as many lists as you want – perhaps one for work colleagues, another one for distant relatives, and a third for those friends that you don’t really keep up with but about whom it is always interesting to discern a few interesting facts. The possibilities are endless and for once Facebook has got this totally right. In fact I’m off to create a “Politics one” now!

But having mastered this, and I can’t say it took longer than five minutes, my format eventually updated itself and lo and behold there was this “ticker” that everyone and their aunty was going on about.

It’s on the bottom right of my homepage, although allegedly on the top right of others, and I dare say if you allow it to be, it could be viewed as downright annoying. But to me it’s a quick link to what is going on in the world (of Facebook – and that is the real world, isn’t it?) around me.

The last time I looked at my friends list, and I would recommend that you do this every now and again, though not too often or people start getting insecure unnecessarily, particularly if you announce your intentions by means of a “Facebook cull imminent” status update, I had 221 friends.

Now I am sure I once read elsewhere that 150 was the most you could realistically interact with, and my 221 is already double the average thrown up in this recent research: Virtual or real online friends

But what was more interesting, and what brings me back to the “ticker” is that I already have the newsfeeds of 51 of these friends hidden from sight! I already don’t want to know what almost one quarter of my “friends” are up to!

As Burns said : “Oh would some power the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us.”, and I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering, though not usually for too long, quite how many people have MY Facebook newsfeeds hidden from view, what with their outlandish and obscure photographs and dodgy foreign music You-tube videos!

But away from that worrying thought and back to the ticker, and what an American choice of word that was! I don’t actually see the harm in it, especially with the built in hover function, whereby you can hover over someone’s quote in your ticker, add a “like” (though sadly not yet a “dislike”) or a comment and then one click later you’re back where you started.

All of which brings me nicely back to where I started and the third of the new Facebook functions, the timeline.

It’s not on general release as yet, but anyone with only basic Google skills can find out all about it as there are videos and newsprint articles by the score.

As ever with a Facebook change there will be howls of anguish but let’s be blunt here – we already live in the age where a misplaced drunken photograph on a night out, when you phoned in sick with the flu that morning, can lead to disciplinary action at work, and perhaps rightly so.

If your newsfeed is like mine, then some of your friends already post from time to time photos from time gone by, and it can be frustrating, unless you have a wonderful memory, and mine is sadly falling out of that category these days, to try and remember just exactly when that night out was!

So the thought of having your life history unfold before the eyes of your friends does not fill me with any particular dread. A few imminent cringes I dare say, but that’s just part of the rich tapestry of 21^st century life. And increasing social interaction is the way things are going to be, there’s no two ways about it.

I do have a few friends who don’t interact much online, often by removing their Facebook wall, but they still do interact by means of messages, and I do consider it a fallacy to think we can hide from the world at large, as anyone who types their name into Google has no doubt already discovered. You haven’t? How odd!

But otherwise internet action is taken as the norm these days, although for some there’s a degree of catching up to do, as I discovered at last year’s school reunion, when it transpired that the number of Facebook accounts was barely out of single figures. But that’s the generation gap for you!

As I posted on Facebook a short time ago, though strangely not on Twitter despite my comment falling well under the 140 character maximum, I am currently sitting with no fewer than seven social networking sites open, and that’s without the afore-mentioned Twitter! I have to say that thus far this fine day I have only interacted with anyone on two of them but there you go.

Is that wrong? I think not as long as your “real” life still exists, and pause for reflection on those less fortunate than ourselves, who perhaps through illness or infirmity, don’t have a real life. But they can still interact online with others.

As with anything in life if you get it wrong well you get it wrong. But what’s the worst that can happen? You meet someone new? I did just that on Saturday night – someone I have interacted with, usually in a humorous way, up until now online. But now he is “real”, whatever that is.

As ever in the course of my writings I have touched on lots I could digress into, but that’s for another time. I haven’t mentioned Facebook subscribers, or off at a tangent the dot.scot campaign. For now it’s off to publish this on Twitter and Facebook....but then that’s where you found it all in the first place isn’t it?!