I went to Blogging and Microblogging since I'm a bit curious about Twitter. It turns out there's another microblogging tool called Pownce that was also discussed. After the session, I remain curious but unconvinced. One attendee said that Twitter, rather than sucking up more time, as I fear it would, helps you do things faster (e.g. takes away the pressure to write loooong blog posts like this one).
You can keep Twitter open on the side of your Firefox window, I assume using the TwitBin extension, but the person (Jack Martin from NYPL) didn't say. I can see using it when I have a question I'd like a quick answer to, like, "Does anyone have any suggestions for library swag that costs less than a dollar and preferably not from Janway?" or when I need help coming up with appropriate (ha!) subject headings for particular zines. I think students would like Twitter, but I don't think there will be much buy in for a while yet, so I'm not sure how much use of it I could make for helping patrons.
Note:
- It seems that it's difficult to find friends in Twitter itself, so use a search engine instead, e.g. name>
- use Twit Lit for book talks and book promotion
- see also Karen Schneider's TwitterProse
- The UIUC library is using Twitter as Ask Undergrad
- As I'm typing this I'm getting an error message from all Twitter sites, "Twitter's taking a nap for an hour, but we'll be back soon!"
- Twitter definitely seems to be habit forming. It's fans appeared a bit…fanatic.
Although I have an account (not sure the link will work, and definitely not if you're not a member), I haven't gotten all that into Facebook. Shannon Kealey of NYU (and one of my library camp new best friends) seems to have figured out how to integrate the personal and the professional in social networking with students, using her profile to notify her friends when she's at the reference desk and what services are offered there. I'll definitely go through her presentation on the subject in the immediate future.