Diary of a Twitter virgin

                           

Last week I wrote about my confusion and indifference to the new social networking craze, Twitter.

I was challenged by a devout Twitter user to give it a go.

Here is my week-long diary of a Twitter virgin.

Thursday September 18

In an attempt to show I am a man of my word, I have signed up, found a couple of ‘friends’ and updated for the first time:

‘Losing my Twitter virginity’.

It told me I needed to enter my phone number so I could update from my mobile, but I declined  – some things are sacred, as C.P Scott probably didn’t say.

Friday  September 19

This Twitter thing must be more addictive than I thought – I log on at work and check the site before Facebook or my personal email.

In the spirit of sharing journalistic experiences, I send my second ‘Tweet’ (I’m sure those in the know will tell me I’m using the lingo wrong…)

‘Uploading two hours of footage from Surrey council tax debate…’

Not the most thrilling update you’ll ever come across, but as I’m still sceptical about sharing my personal life I decide to keep it work-related for now.

I now have one person following me and I am following seven, four of whom I know and three who are purely media idols.

I am not sure whether the aim is to accrue as many friends as possible, like Myspace and Facebook, or simply to add people who you might actually want to talk to.

Saturday September 20

It’s the weekend, so normally I would try to steer clear of anything work related, but I am in Guildford for two video shoots so I take the opportunity to Tweet about it.

I now have two people following me, and the best thing about Twitter so far is that it allowed me to find about about this incredibly stupid but stupidly incredible game, with which I have become slighly obsessed.

Still unsure about the purpose of the whole thing, I decide to ask a question about embedding video into a blog. I get no response.

Monday September 21

I log on to find people from Manchester talking about the Labour Party conference. I have nothing to add, so I add nothing.

I am beginning to think the reason I am not getting much out of Twitter is because I don’t have enough friends who use it.

It is possible to search for friends who Tweet by entering your email address, but for all I know there could be literally hundreds of my friends around here and I’ll never know.

Unlikely though.

Wednesday September 22

So that was not quite a week of not quite getting to grips with Twitter.

A few things strike me.

It’s a great way to share links and send short updates whilst ‘on the go’, but really it’s just an extremely basic version of Facebook.

It doesn’t work if your friends don’t use it, and it also doesn’t work if you don’t fully embrace the concept of telling the world what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Both of these apply to me.

Considering I have a fairly addictive personality when it comes to social networking sites and online time-wasting applications, you would think Twitter would be made for me. But you would be wrong.

I am glad I accepted the challenge and I will doubtless occasionally log on in the future just to see if anything has changed, but I’m afraid Twitter remains too much of a niche for me to fully embrace.

‘What are you doing?’ Newsflash: Nobody cares

I like to think of myself as pretty clued-up and on the ball in the crazy land of the World Wide Web.

I have a Facebook account, I have various blogs, I have two derelict Myspace sites (because let’s face it, Myspace is so 2005.)

I even tried to venture into the world of Bebo until it hijacked my address book and invited everyone I’ve ever come into contact with to join me, resulting in a handful of flustered emails from old school teachers assuring me that Bebo wasn’t for them but wishing me well in all my endeavours.

One thing I have never got the hang of though is on-the-go status updates.

Until recently, I thought status updates were just an annoying by-product of Facebook, an outlet for that girl you used to know to tell the world she is “counting down the days…only 29 sleeps ’til Europe!”, or the slightly disturbed guy from your old job letting you know he is “fumin that his ex thinks it’s ok to lie and that I should accept it as if nothing has changed!!!!!”*

But now it appears that the whole of the online media community has gone mad for Twitter, a not-so-new craze allowing you to update your status anywhere at any time and deliver it to all of your ‘friends’, just in case they missed the fact that you have to go to the toilet one last time before bed.

Sarah Hartley argues that Twitter is just a bit of fun and “those who aren’t fans of the social network can click off to something else”, but the fact remains that I don’t get it.

If I want to let someone know what I’m doing, how I’m feeling or when I plan to eat my sandwiches, I send them a text message or an email.

So why is the whole world and his web-shaped wife going mad for this kind of thing?

Under the brilliantly succinct heading ‘Why?’, Twitter’s website offers one of the funniest explanations for anything ever.

“Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful,” it begins. Ok, fair point.

“Partying? Your friends may want to join you,” it goes on. Understandable. Everybody needs to know where the party’s at.

But then comes the piece de resistance.

“Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.”

And that pretty much sums it up.

Social networking tools can indeed be useful for sharing links, cracking jokes or keeping in touch with friends.

But when it comes to recording your every waking move, there is only one thing to say:

Nobody cares.

*All statuses are verbatim copies but names have been withheld to protect the innocent.

What is a blog?

They have become one of the defining features of the technological generation.

They divide opinion, create furious debate and open doors to corners of the internet you never knew existed.

They allow hundreds of thousands of angst-ridden, creative or simply bored individuals to share their innermost thoughts and feelings with the world.

So just what is a blog?

Wikipedia defines a blog as a website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

From hard-hitting political discourse to funny pictures of cats, you can’t surf the net for long without coming across someone with something to share with the world.

Some people use blogs as a creative outlet, a form of free ‘self-publishing’ that can potentially attract attention from commissioners, editors or record labels – just ask The Arctic Monkeys.

‘Maggie’, who uses her blog at Mildew and Milk to post her poetry, says: “A blog should be where you put the things that you want people to see, but more importantly, other people should want to see these things. Otherwise, you know, write in a diary or something.”

Others use their space to discuss issues and experiences surrounding their chosen subject – be it celebrities, babies, political views or green living.

There is also a growing trend for ‘live blogging’, a craze which has caught on particularly with sports fans who do not have access to the criminally expensive monopoly of satellite channels or simply like to follow their team ‘on the sly’ in the office.

One of the most important aspects of a blog, it would appear, is interaction between author and audience. Utter the phrase ‘user generated content’ within 20 metres of any self-respecting web journalist and they will turn into a quivering wreck of excitement at the idea of the previously muted masses engaging with their zany theories.

Comments are of course moderated to avoid defamation and downright spite filtering through, but I often find myself scrolling down to the discussion section of a piece without having thoroughly digested the words of the actual ‘professional’ journalist.

But before you rush off to sign up and start pouring you heart out, a warning from one of the world’s most eminent writers and web geeks, Stephen Fry.

“The danger of having one’s own space, whether it’s column inches or a blog,” says Fry, “is that it just turns one into a kind of prating imbecile, an overwhelmingly proud person, a person who thinks they have a right to share their furies with the rest of the world.”

He is, of course, speaking with tongue firmly in cheek, as he has fully embraced the concept of sharing one’s furies through all possible means of technology through his charmingly named podgrams and blessays.

So there you have it, a less than comprehensive overview of the world of blogging. There is so much more I could say, but most of it involves things I don’t understand like Twitter, del.ici.ous, RSS feeds and other things that probably sound like various types of bird food.

Happy blogging.

In the words of Lionel Richie, “Hello…”

Hello.

My name is Sam, and this is my brand new blog.

I have been reluctant to commit to this for a while now but it would appear the time has come to embrace what the kids are calling the ‘professional blog’.

I am starting it with the best intentions of keeping an online record of my work as a journalist, inspired largely by articles such as this and hundreds of other journalistic gems hidden within the deepest corners of the world wide web.

For the record I am an online journalist at a local newspaper in England. My job involves a mixture of ‘regular’ journalism and increasingly exciting things involving video cameras, editing software and post-it notes with phone numbers that mean nothing to me.

This is essentially an exercise in self-promotion, as recommended by Mindy McAdams, but I would like to think it is also a new addition to an increasingly saturated market of journalists talking about journalism.

Along with championing my own work, I will use this blog as a place to post links to other much more accomplished writers and broadcasters, some of whom are friends and some merely idols.

I hope it will prove interesting to gain an insight into the world of local journalism through the eyes of a trainee reporter with the added slant of multimedia.

I hope I don’t come across as too pompous or snobbish. Please leave comments as you wish, because as I was probably told at a conference somewhere once, a blog is nothing without two-way contribution.

Enjoy.
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