I first signed up to Twitter a couple of years ago, pretty much from its start, thanks to Debra Hamel*, who spotted its potential and was one of the service's early adopters. I didn't use Twitter, though, as I didn't find it useful or interesting for anything else I was doing.
Time went by, and not only did Twitter become integrated into other web services (eg if you post a blog post or contribute to Friend Feed or Face Book, your words can automatically be posted to Twitter or vice versa); but also secondary services allowed one to read Twitter in more useful (and less clunky) ways - notably Tweetdeck (mainly) or Thwirl in my case.
I've now installed a Twitter feed into my blog (see left) and am using it as a mini-news and information service. That is, if I see an interesting article in my RSS reader or via someone else on Twitter etc, I will post a link on Twitter or "reTweet" it, as appropriate, and the result will appear in the "Twitter feed" window of this blog. If you think one these articles, which are mostly about the subject-matter of the blog as described above in the subtitle below the word "PETRONA", looks worth reading, then click through to an individual article of interest. The five most recent links show up in the Petrona window. If you want to track all the articles I link to, then "follow" me on Twitter (@Maxine_Clarke) or if you prefer Friend Feed, at my "home" Friend Feed account, where these same links also appear.
If you want links and conversation exclusively about crime, mystery and thriller fiction, you are also welcome to join the FriendFeed room for the purpose. There, I and others who share similar reading interests post links and discuss the articles there and each others' blog posts (which automatically feed into the room). It is not (yet?) possible to integrate a FriendFeed into Petrona.
Any "inconsequential chat" (also known by some observers as "drivel") that I indulge in on Twitter will be in the form of "direct messages" to individual users, so will not show up in the Petrona Twitter feed. All you'll get there are links to articles I find stimulating or otherwise worthy of note but which I'm not writing a blog post about for one reason or another.
Lots of other people use Twitter for many reasons, but this is how I'm using it. In a nutshell: to share links to articles that interest me and that might interest you, with the odd comment about them thrown in.
*Debra is omnipresent on the Internet but you can easily find her various personae via her blog, the Deblog.
Thanks for the update on your Twitter usage. I'm glad you're not as hostile to it as I think you originally were! (Thanks also for the mention.) Now that I have a new computer (just inherited the husband's, which is much faster than my old one) maybe I can afford to use Twhirl again. For so long I've been living in Firefox to minimize the room I take up. Thanks for the reminder.
Posted by: Debra Hamel | 30 August 2009 at 22:30
Thanks, Debra - I started with Thwirl but find the column display (personalisable) of Tweetdeck better. I don't think I was ever hostile to Twitter, rather felt that it was "part of the noise" of all these many, distracting internet sites. Now, because of these various improvements and this Typepad Twitter panel blog option, I do find it useful. Also Friend Feed. There are loads of other Internet services that people find useful but I've found to be a waste of time so don't use them!
By the way, Thwirl and Tweetdeck are both free but require download of Adobe AIR (also free). I am not sure how big AIR is - I already have it on my home computer anyway, as I use it for some applications connected to my work. So no big deal for me, but perhaps it is one for slower computers.
Posted by: Maxine | 31 August 2009 at 09:16
Update: It is now possible to integrate friend feed into a typepad blog, so the Friend Feed crime and mystery fiction group can be seen immediately below my Twitter feed on the left. Click through to join us!
Posted by: Maxine | 06 March 2010 at 22:12