Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum

The 3-D Web Bleeds from World to Web to World

Eye Opening Educational Link:

Dusan Writer’s Metaverse - Where Virtual Worlds are Going:

"the richness of virtual worlds is increasingly an ecosystem of connections and content that bleeds from Web to world"

Twitter : What's the Point

An insightful reader named Karen wrote a comment on my last post about twitter and in doing she made some excellent points. For example she wondered if twitter was a bit like walking around with shirts displaying our latest emoticon. Which sometimes we are in fact.

Karen and others who wonder about twitter are not alone. There are lots of negatives about twitter, especially if one uses it to constantly bombard us with links to their newest blog post, something they want to sell, or their latest "opportunity."

Then there's the old joke that we tweet each time the cat turns over. Some of that's true.

But there are those of us who use it as a way to communicate and converse and we find it very helpful. Yes, even if it's just about the cat, we are connecting with people on the other end of the magic box, and doing it in little bits as we have a moment. Like a quick comment across an office or a short group conversation, twitter fills a need for many.

Unfortunately twitter can also be used as a billboard to blast information out without engaging in a back and forth. Lots of big names use it as a way to tell people they've just bought a new BMW or had lunch with another of the beautiful people. Apparently their fans like it, as many of them have hundreds of thousands of followers; see Britney Spears & others. In fact there is a special feed just for celebrity tweets.

I think that's kind of not the point of twitter, but opinions vary.

My experience is that for the most part twitter is much more personal than that billboard Karen wondered about. Not everybody sees what you tweet unless you have millions of followers like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher - although if folks have superhuman reading speed perhaps they can read your and all other tweets streaming down the public timeline

If you're even more concerned with just communicating with a very select group you have the option to set your account to be private & only let people that you actually know follow  ( in other words people will never see your tweets unless you give them the OK.)

In any case, the only people who wind up paying attention are those who subscribe or "follow" you. It's not as if everyone is interested unless they see from your profile that you have something in common. Often you start off connecting w/ people you know in real life.

Beyond that, attracting kind of followers you want is not always easy. So it may be that broadcasting via the twitter billboard may not be an automatic success some would hope.

In my case, it's been a surprising experience for me. Specifically the support I got from twitter right after my breast cancer diagnosis was just astounding. My real life neighbors didn't do as much as send a card. Twitter people - complete strangers - wrapped me up and held me in a virtual hug. You can read more about the phenomenon of twitter the frozen pea images that flooded twitter here in a Washington Post article and see an article from Robert Scoble about Peas on Earth.

Twitter is not for everyone and there are many other options that may meet different people's need. But after my personal experience with twitter, with how I've seen others benefit themselves and others as they reach out share experiences, fears and emotions, I can't say enough good stuff about the concept of sharing my emoticons too :)

CNN, Kutcher, Oprah Tweeting to the Masses

The blog world has been atwitter today about Ashton Kutcher and CNN's race to amass a million followers on twitter (Kutcher won late Friday night). Witty repartee on the topic is rampant on twitter, many tweets with links to blog entries on the ins and outs of social media; Oprah's twitter account; who follows who on twitter; how many people one should follow; who gets twitter and who doesn't. It goes on and on.

Opinions vary and admittedly I've got an unbalance in my follower ratio and am constantly beating myself up over it. I'd like to engage in conversation with everyone - but honestly there's not enough of me to handle it. My answer is to try to make up for the imbalance by answering those who send @ messages (tweet a message with @susanreynolds in the text).

Fine, so this may not be something Ashton can manage since he's got a million followers to my couple of thousand . . BUT CNN can. No matter what their following numbers are at they've got staff who can interact with those of us who try to engage them.

The question is whether they, or any of the other traditional media - old media - chose to have a conversation. Is that concept even on their radar much less their priority list?

Unlike Ford who hired Scott Monty to help bring them into the world of interactive media in a way that's fun, informative and personal, CNN chooses to go the way of politicians, celebrities, and other big names who use twitter as a broadcast medium rather than as a way to engage us.

Dialogue? I don't think so. Be prepared to be broadcasted to.

Twitter Support :: The Twitter Rules

Twitter Support :: The Twitter Rules.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.