Task 21 - Twitter

I must admit that I was pretty sceptical of Twitter - I really don't care what celebrities do and I don't think that I need infinite details about what my friends do either. But I have noticed that quite a few libraries are now on Twitter, including Library of Congress; New York Public Library; and our very own ICML page now has a Twitter link.

I also came across an article titled "9 logical reasons why you need to integrate Twitter into your website" which had some very valid reasons for using it. I was wondering why you would bother to have a blog and a twitter page, but this is a good explanation "Each time I post to our blog, I RT the post title and link (Tiny URL’d, of course) on both my personal Twitter account as well as the CHROMATIC Twitter account. Those tweets are then displayed on various pages found throughout our website and blog, instantly increasing the exposure of the latest article and, as a result, increasing the odds that we experience the “Twitter Effect“ (from the previously mentioned article).

After looking at some of the personal Twitter pages though, it reinforces my original lack of interest in the site. Apparently 60% of Twitter users stop using the site after one month (from the Charleston Report, May/June 2009).