Do you use Twitter? Or, in modern parlance, do you tweet?

I've never seen the point of it but starting to get slowly sucked into it. Finally figured out how to use all the little @, # etc signs! If you want to follow my ramblings just send me a PM !

And there was a very interesting article, did you know the # sign is called an 'Octothorpe'? you really learn something new every day...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/dec/08/hash-symbol-twitter-typography

I use Twitter, but mainly to follow interesting feeds/twitterers to learn useful stuff, rather than tweeting myself. For example there are lots of archivists posting about interesting records, which appeals to me as a historian. And there are lots of local tweets I follow, like my uni, the local theatre, the arts centre, etc.

I'll PM you though :-)

So far I'm following quite a lot of science journalists and scientists, as it's a nice way to know what people are writing about and what is out there. Some other vacuous stuff too (yes, Lady Gaga, that means you - oh the shame). Going to have to start looking what is available locally too, never thought of using it for that!

I did sign up when I was at a conference and they were encouraging us to tweet but kind of got out of the habit of but now I have a new phone which makes it easier I might get into it again - just not sure how to find people worth following (while it's midly amusing to see what some celeb is doing occassionally Im not sure that there are enough hours in the day)

hi Dan!
I never knew about Octothorpe, I thought it was a hash or a sharp (music sharp) :-)
thanks for posting :-)

I'm trying to avoid these social networking sites (difficult, though!).
There have so many invites that it has become really annoying.
Even facebook can be annoying sometimes. I signed up when I was in a really good mood.
And then it has never stopped (all the notifications, requests etc.!).

at the moment I only use Facebook (already stuck)
love satchi

I find Twitter much less time-consuming than Facebook. But I'm not really into social networking: don't have the time/energy for it. I only stay on Facebook to keep in touch with other people with my 1 in a million disease.

As I said I use Twitter mainly for finding out useful/interesting stuff. So I'm following far more twitter feeds than I am twittering myself. And not - apart from Stephen Fry and a few others - any celebrities. Rather interesting local feeds, interesting history ones, astronomy feeds, etc.

And I restrict my tweets to be readable to followers only, so I am a bit happier about my twitterings not getting out there so much. And I approve any follow requests. I get very few.

I've thought about Twitter, but I wouldn't have my own tweet. I don't really have anything interesting to say. If I had followers, I'd feel like I'd have to 'perform' in order to 'keep' them.

I've got a twitter account but barely go on there. I spend enough time procrastinating that I don't need more distractions so I'm not putting the effort into getting into it.

I have literally just started using twitter yesterday. Mainly because of the utterly crap communication from southeastern trains and twitter users seem a more reliable source of info than the NRE and southeastern websites. Not really sure on all the # and @ things though. I feel old.

I found Twitter invaluable a few weeks ago when our broadband went down twice within 6 days. It wasn't just us, but a huge problem taking out Scotland and much of northern England. And it wasn't isolated to any single ISP. By searching for relevant tweets on Twitter (using my 3G Kindle - thank goodness I had that!) I was able to quickly understand the extent of the problem, and get more information about what was going on than from my ISP or BT who were to blame.

can you use kindle to go on the internet?

Yes. It has a web browser. It's described by Amazon as "experimental", and I wouldn't want to use it a lot. But it's functional, and good when your broadband goes down, or you're out and about, for example sitting in a coffee shop. The WiFi Kindle needs a wireless network to connect, but the 3G+WiFi version connects anywhere.

ooh I didn't realise that - I think hubs has got me one for xmas :-) (he's not very subtle)

Veering away from the twitter thread, I'm thinking of getting a kindle, they look as if they would be very handy, what do you guys think of them?

I've had my Kindle for 2 months. It's transformed my reading. I'm an unusual case though, because I have severe difficulties reading print books now, due to physical and cognitive problems from a progressive neurological disease. I find the Kindle much easier to concentrate on, and to hold, and I can adjust the font size to be optimal for me reading.

But I pretty much just use it for recreational reading. The text books relevant to my (now post-doc) research aren't available in Kindle form. And when I have loaded PDFs onto it I prefer to cnovert them to native Kindle format, rather than to zoom in and scroll about, so I can have my favourite font size etc.

But for recreational reading it is superb. I've got about 8 books on the go at the moment, and can flit between like a yo-yo. And I have many more I'm looking forward to reading.