Twitter is microblogging. 140 characters. No points. No pictures although you can link to your real blog's posts, a photoblogs post, a photo on Flickr, ..
Twitter is kind of hard for some people to get used to. Lots of noise... peas all over the place... although frozen peas are for frozen pea Friday. Twitter made me paranoid. People Twitter what they are eating, people Twitter some silly stuff, people Twitter links to good stuff they've found on the web. People Twitter links to bad stuff they found on the web. People Twitter when it's raining or snowing... or hot or cold. People Twitter a link to their blogs or Twitter a link to other people's blogs. Some people use Twitter as chat.
You can use Twitter to listen. Locally. Nationally. Internationally.
I heard about Benazir Bhutto's assassination first from a Canadian man who works in traditional media, who I follow on Twitter. Robpatrob wrote:
Beanzir Bhutto has bene killed in abomb blast 08:35 AM December 27, 2007 from twitterrific 
Teri Lussier had Twittered about Benazir Bhutto's assasination just before the Canadian man.... but I saw his Tweet first. Teri wrote:
They got Benazir Bhutto? 08:30 AM December 27, 2007 from web
You can also get feeds from News. Those came through shortly after Rob and Teri's Twitters.
To be fair if you were tuned into Lucky Lang on ActiveRain, Lucky could have been the first to tell you what happened in Pakistan on Thursday: Bhutto Assasinated other AR members blogged about Benazir Bhutto's assassination as well Bhutto Search on ActiveRain
The question on Twitter is:
"What are you doing?" The answer in 140 characters or less is often more what you are thinking. Or what you are feeling.
I searched for Pakistani bloggers a couple of times Thursday. The first time I could not find any that did not have protected Tweets (private) or had been MIA for months. I went back in later and found three Pakistani Twitterers to subscribe to...
I Tweeted:
MaureenMcCabe I found three Pakistani Twitterers to follow @SayB , @tahiriqbal & @Rubab 2 Twittered about the assassination, other tweeted 1 day ago. about 16 hours ago from web
Did anyone pick up on my Tweet and start following the three Pakistani Twitterers? Who knows.
How life can change in one day...
Rubab is a highly educated 26 year old woman in Pakistan. the photo on Twitter is a woman wearing a veil. Rubab is a blogger, I have access to her blog via Twitter, she has blogged a lot since the death of Benazir Bhutto. It looks like it is syndicated material from the media. This is from Rubab's Twitters:
i am really really bore today 09:05 PM December 26, 2007 from web
Rubab's latest Twitter is:
1 day ago from web
I wish she'd Twitter more. Rubab emailed me.
Can you imagine if there was Twitter in the aftermath of THE tsunami?
Can you imagine if there was Twitter in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005?
Can you imagine if there was Twitter in the aftermath of 911?
Can you imagine if there was Twitter all the days of your life when you remember when and where you were when you first heard... or saw somthing major? When you heard about The crash of the flight at Locherbie Scotland? The assassination of Martin Luther King? The assassination of Robert Kennedy. The assasination of JFK? The resignation of Nixon.
Would it be a good thing or a bad thing to have Twitter after a crisis? I started blogging just days before Katrina hit New Orleans... I was overwhelmed with all the posts about Katrina. I think I resisted the urge to write about Kartina... my blog was called Columbus Best Blog. It was about Columbus Ohio... I know as a new bloggers I was confused about why Seattle, NYC, PA. real estate blogs were about New Orleans LA.
Will we remember things from blogging or microblogging in the same way that we remember the other events in our lives on TV or radio when they break in with a Special Report?
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