Friday 17 April 2009

Thoughts on Twitter

Following a great session on Enterprise 2.0 at our recent IT Forum meeting, led by Jon Mell, I've been trying to use Twitter sensibly - both as a poster and as a reader.

1) I love the idea that organisations are waiting for feedback on their products to come up on Twitter - I still await a response from Lexmark and/or Linksys to a comment I posted today about the evident incompatibility of my Lexmark printer and my Linksys print server ... I'm not holding my breath though, they did only cost £45 between them.

2) I use the 'search' capability quite a bit. I tried subscribing to a search on 'choral', but got disillusioned pretty quickly - it highlighted a problem with any subscription to Twitter content other than as a follower - people don't post the context of what they are writing. For this reason I am trying hard to make my posts meaningful when read in isolation.

3) Why do people think 'xxx rocks' is a meaningful thing to post on its own? If you like something, take the time to tell us why - otherwise what is the point of the post? (Anyway, although I accept that this is a personal view, the use of the word 'rocks' in this sense really annoys me. http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/rock_2?view=uk)

4) I am puzzled by some of the people who follow me - I wonder what on earth they get out of it? It seems unusual to get a reply to a post.

5) I find an RSS reader (in my case SharpReader) an excellent vehicle for Twitter content.

4 comments:

  1. I work for Lexmark and saw your Tweet. Sorry that our printer didn't work with the Linksys print server. There's a technical explanation for that, but it won't help you print :-)
    We do have a full line of wireless printers that cost around the same amount as a printer server - so maybe you can return the printer server and get a wireless printer like the X4650 which sells for as little as USD$75 (£50).
    You could find something used like the X4550 which is a good little 3-in-1 also.

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  2. Thats a good article. I completely agree. I work in Deskaway.com and we do a lot of our correspondences and small communications through twitter and it has really helped us improve our visibilty.

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  3. Many thanks both - I am returning the Linksys print server and will be making use of a Sitecom LN-308 which I know from previous experience to be compatible.

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  4. I've now bought a Lexmark 1400 wireless printer which is absolutely brilliant, dead easy to configure, has good power saving features, and cost me £29. (Well, the second one is brilliant - the first one had a duff wireless adapter, but these things happen.)

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