Twitter ye not? Why not?

TWITTER has some 145 million registered users worldwide. It was set up in 2006 by entrepreneur Jack Dorsey and named after the noise that excited communicative birds make and was further defined as "a short burst of inconsequential information".

But rather than just been a source of inconsequential information Twitter has become a key part of the communication methods of celebrities, companies, public services and even entire Governments.

The idea behind Twitter is rather simple - you set up an account and follow other users who in turn can choose to follow you. You can send your followers text messages which must be no more than 140 characters long. However, the real benefit of Twitter is that it allows you to follow the people, subjects and issues that matter to you. Trusted online communities are formed of people interested in collecting and sharing the information that interests them.

In practice what you get is a rich source of almost instant information about the subjects that concern you - or your business or group. So you get notice of press releases from government departments far sooner than waiting for official e-mail releases. You got information on events from people actually attending and Tweeting about them. Decision makers will contact their followers to let them know of the latest developments - or even to test the waters about new ideas and initiatives. Companies will do vital market research amongst their followers.

In short Twitter is a useful service; so why are there not more people from the HU12 post code area using the service?

If you wish to join Twitter then visit http://twitter.com

If you want help in signing up then have a look at the document produced by the Hedon Blogger on setting up the @HU12net Twitter account on Scribd: Setting Up a Twitter Account.

And after you have signed up then you might want to follow these Twitter folk:

@HedonBlog
@RayDuff
@GrahamStuart
@East_Riding
@Seaside_FM
and the account we have just set up @Hu12net