Stick a fork in him, he's done
#1 Question people have asked me today at the BlogPaws Conference:
What is your url? Nope.
What do you blog about? Nope.
Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? For once, nope.
Can I Tweet this picture of your dog? Yep, that would be the one.
I decided to bring young Cole in his first prime-time appearance.
Other than some audible air leakage and excessive schmoozing during what were apparently very boring break-out sessions, he has been a Very Good Boy. Part of being a working dog is handling crowds and long days.
He's spent the day whoring for all the humans, and very appropriately meeting the other dogs and the nekkid cats in strollers. (No, I didn't get a picture. Everyone else did, though.)
I did not leave him at the very nice free dog-check at any point; we're very pleased with his lovely canine social skills, and will not be setting him up for any preventable relapses to the Old Way.
Anyway, I don't do da twitters and dunno how it works. Can someone translate it into middle-aged dog trainer for me?
Microblogging. Specifically, say what you like in 140 characters or less, including links.
ReplyDeleteFollow the tweets of people of similar interests, or opposite interests, or no interests if you choose. Once you start interacting, people will follow you if they like your tweets or maybe if they hate your tweets.
You don't have to be "approved" to follow someone's tweets unless they protect them (most ppl don't). Likewise, you can choose to share your tweets with the world or keep them private for only ppl you approve. If someone annoys you beyond tolerance, you can block that person so they can't annoy you any longer. If you made a mistake, you can always choose to unblock them later. Spammers get reported for spam and blocked with just a click.
How'd I do?
I tweet, on others' advice, but it nonetheless strikes me as basically futile and ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThe value of either sending or receiving such tiny orts of wisdom just escapes me. Yet I have followers. Go figure.
Have at it.
I resisted teh Twitter for a very long time. Finally, this offseason, I was convinced of its limited utility because the beat writers covering the teams I follow (and the more astute national writers) started using it to broadcast the meat of new contracts as they were announced. This means I follow about a half dozen others, and have no followers myself. Actual status updates, photos, cranky commentary along with story links, and HTMLified notes continue to be on Facebook, where I spend the bulk of my non-blogging time.
ReplyDeleteTwitter is useful, but only just, and on a daily basis I generally have no use for it. My Google News filters catch far more interesting stuff for me than I collect on Twitter. But Twitter's timeliness is better.
Microblogging, yes. I tweet almost daily and follow a lot of people. Mostly authors and artists whose work I enjoy. I also follow some best deals sites and coupon sites.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a bit to get the hang of it. Twitter is much more fun if you interact. It's somewhat amusing if you just read and don't interact.
If you enjoy trending pop culture or social movements, Twitter can be invaluable.
I keep telling everyone that the only reason I'd join Twitter is to let all m faithful followers know exactly how my trips to the toilet turn out. It's about the only consistently exciting thing that happens in my life at this point in time, anyway.
ReplyDeleteIn truth, I'll probably not ever join those ranks. It's much more exciting being able to write essays on dog-related topics anyway.
I dislike Facebook, too much noise to signal, but I like Twitter a lot.
ReplyDeleteI only post a little but I read a dozen people daily, and am always glad I did.
As an example of someone who does it well, concentrating on science, I recommend reading Wired writer Steve Silberman. You can read him even without opening a Twitter account at:
http://twitter.com/stevesilberman
I find Twitter a fast way to read a wide range, and I always am referred to things I never would have found.
Okay, I opened a Twitter account. Looked for some of y'all, only found Rob M.
ReplyDeleteThe "featured tweets" are the most brainless crap I've ever seen.
Like someone is just typing out the taglines from those stupid corporate motivational posters.
I can't stand Twitter. I do use facebook and I blog on a site called sparkpeople because I'm trying to get healtheir. Other than those two sites and reading Heather's blog, I'm away from the computer or any technology except for work. The rest of the world doesn't need to know what I do every 5 minutes like Tweeters think.
ReplyDelete