HowToItaly on Twitter - and why I rate it

The dinosaur age.*

That's when I lived in Bologna. There were no internet points, hardly anyone had email, we couldn't phone out on the house phone and mobiles were few and far between.

Keeping in touch with friends and family back home was a particular problem. Faced with having to write a letter to keep in touch or not keep in touch, for a lazy student like me not keep in touch was the option.

Of course, that's all changed these days, particulary with the onslaught of networking sites like MySpace and Facebook (I'm on both, so come and join me). Even so, sending flowers to someone for their e-garden, adding your virtual bookcase, or simply biting someone as a vampire can take time and effort. And then there's the whole dilemma of who your Top Friends are and do they think the same way.

That's why I like Twitter. It's simple. It's easy. And it's not time-consuming. Not least because you've only got 140 characters to play with.

I use mine for business purposes and to post things that don't warrant a lengthier blog post. But you can use it to connect with friends and family and broadcast what you're up to without sending out hundreds of texts. And, because you can keep the settings private, no one else needs to know.

Anyway, on the right hand side of this blog, you'll see my Twitter updates. Why not click on and see what I've been up to?

*not really. Only 10 years ago. But it felt like it.

Comments

[Joanna Young]

Emma, I'm definitely going to stick with you to keep up with the 21st century. You persuaded me to stick with Facebook and I'm now glad that I did. I'd given up on twitter a month or so back, but you've talked me into giving it another shot...See you there!

Joanna

PS You need to get your smiling face on there though!

[Emma Bird]

Joanna

Your Facebook and Twitter pages are amazing. I love the pot of crayons. And full of lovely pictures (memo to self: I need to get onto istockphotos more)that it puts me to shame.

The photo. Yes, you're right. I need it. Thanks for the gentle reminder. But not being a visual person, I keep forgetting to take photos. That's not an excuse, though. I'm in London at the end of the month and I'm taking the camera with me. At that point, I will put my photo on here and update Facebook, StumbleUpon and Twitter.

[Lea]

Emma - right, I'm going on to Twitter to look for you now! I've really got into it, in a slightly different way than before in the past few months and now have some fascinating, supportive and really great people as twitter buds.

If you're not a visual person, then another new thing that seems to be all the rage with my twitter buds right now is utterz.com - bit of a faff if you're not in the US but it's an audio thing which lets you Twitter by voice basically or so it seems (bit like mychingo.com but more interactive - oh yes, that reminds me, one of my twitter buds is also the creator of mychingo!!).

At any rate, it's been fun actually listening to the voices of my twitter buds instead of just reading their tweets.

Tweet you later!

Lea

[Joanna Young]

Hi Emma, I thought you might enjoy this post on Twitter - with the ref to Italian roundabouts!

http://www.conversationagent.com/2007/11/is-anyone-liste.html

Joanna

[Emma Bird]

Hi Lea

Thanks for your message. So sorry for not getting back to you before now but this cold/flu means I've not been near the laptop.

I really like the sound of utterz.com and I will definitely give it a go - once I have high speed internet instead of dial up. Will check out yours in a bit. Can't wait to find out what you've been up to on there.

Emma

[Emma Bird]

Joanna

I loved that reference to Italian roundabouts. So true, too. Twitter really is like driving in Italy. It struck a chord with me - yesterday evening I was silently cursing the drivers at the roundabout who weren't giving way.

I think you're becoming a Twitter addict...

[Andrey]

> That's why I like Twitter. It's simple. It's easy. And it's not time-consuming

ciao Emma,
very nice article, everybody use twitter and it's a great tool to keep in touch with your boddies, no doubts! but sometimes it does not work, like in my case...

have a look and smile :)
"Twitter? Just great! but I have no time for it :=)
http://www.milanin.com/members/andrey.golub/weblog/654.html

Regards,
Andrey Golub
http://www.spock.com/Andrey-Golub

[Emma Bird]

Andrey

You're right. Twittering takes up time you could be dedicating to other things. But it does allow other people to know what's happening.

Do you want to be 'connected' all the time? Me, absolutely not. But at least it's another option for the way you communicate.

And as you can see, I've Twittered about you and it's showing up on here. Btw, thanks for giving up the time to talk on Tuesday.