Article on Twitter in the Financial Times
Editor’s note: Twitter - another road to ruin
By Peter Whitehead, Digital Business editor
Published: October 21 2008 15:26
An e-mail arrived: “alishabenson wants to keep up with you on Twitter”. It could have been the road to ruin: the irresistible combination of a pretty face and an invitation to “tweet”. So I signed up.
What I found was a curious social networking website, based around mutual stalking.
For those yet to be lured into Twitter, it is all very simple - on the face of it. Users do just two things: they send mini broadcasts, or tweets, about what they are doing, and they read the tweets of others.
Users choose whose tweets they wish to see by making themselves “followers” of those people; their own tweets are received by anyone who has chosen to follow them.
For example, I am now following US presidential candidate Barack Obama (he has about 100,000 following his tweets) and he is following me (I have 33): I learn about his encounters on the campaign trail - “Just finished a major policy address in Toledo” - and he (presumably) keeps up to date with the twists and turns of my day - “Just had quick coffee”.
Most of the links I have made are work related and I can just about see potential business uses.
First and foremost are contacts. A network quickly develops and you do feel vaguely “in touch” with people you are following. In the short time I’ve been Twittering, I have seen a few interesting ideas and some appeals for information and advice, which could reap rich rewards depending on who is following you.
There are also news services and blogs to follow, which are useful.
But it is not really a conversation; tweets are mostly one-way thoughts and observations, with little call for interaction.
My biggest concern, however, is over who I am on Twitter. Am I just me or am I representing the FT? Can I say outrageous things? Can I use it to promote Digital Business?
It is the world of Web 2.0 yet again blurring the boundaries between the professional and the personal. Unedited blogs, indiscretions posted on social networking sites, random thoughts given away to strangers on Twitter - one mistake and it could be the ruin of anyone.
Copyright <http://www.ft.com/servicestools/help/copyright > The Financial Times Limited 2008
