Wow – two months since my last blog. Apologies folks – for those of you who came back to see if anything was new. Lots is….
Where have I been? Well, it is the summer time, and as a dad, there have been MANY weekends where I have been travelling with my daughter to her Highland Dance competitions (she loves to dance! and is not too bad at it either), which seems to take up a boat load of time. And then there was work, which while starting to slow to a much more manageable level was capital-C crazy for a while. During that crazy time, no blogs – but also, for a wee bit, no tweets either….and while I was gone, man did things change!
It seems that celebrities, media, and even many people I know grabbed onto the twitter bandwagon, and registered. Reading through many tweets when coming back, I found some who loved being able to follow their favourite band (being able to say something back and maybe – just maybe having them read it, let alone reply was an amazing thought!). Companies joined in the fray, using twitter to spread the word on their product or service (albeit sometimes in a spam-like manner). Many used it as a micro-blog on their day (this is not new, more of an increase – including tweeting on the contents of their morning breakfast, business meeting or tea-leaf reading). And others reminisced on a day when twitter was much simpler, and was not filled with celebrities, companies, and other.
This has changed Twitter’s topography – especially if you look at who follows people, and the tweet levels of searches. Looking at twitterholic.com (a neat little site to keep track of who you are following or being followed by. Here you can see the top Tweeters based on followers (which is important to some). The top 5? Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears, CNN Breaking News and Oprah.
And of course, with change comes sentiment and opinion. Some have left twitter for friendfeed (very popular to early Twitter adopters such as Robert Scoble). Others now send messages to friends or celebrities on hopes of starting a flame war or gaining attention (there are a few examples which popped into my head, but i don’t feel like giving them airtime). Others lurk much more, while many continue to do what they did.
Me? I still tweet, and when I have time I follow what people are saying on Twitter. Those who know me know my love of music, and during Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, I’ve passed along pics or thoughts, and even heade over to a stage or two after reading other commenting on a hidden gem. I still have my Salesforce search, and will answer questions when people have a query I think I may be able to help. And yes – I am sure you’ve seen a comment or eight about bagpipe sounds, soccer, TV or anything else on my mind. Do I get responses all the time? No – but that’s ok. To paraphrase the Arrogant Worms (a great Canadian band!) Twitter is really, really big. And as a user of this really, really big application, if I don’t like what I see, I can just move on. I’m just happy to be part of the pod.