I am addicted to Twitter!

I AM ADDICTED TO TWEETING/text around bird designed by me! Hello everyone! So I felt really compelled to blog about my addiction to Twitter.

Now I have been addicted to many things over the years: Korean boybands that I couldn’t understand; making fan sites for dancers from So You Think You Can Dance; creating random and colorful graphics; California; raw fish (sashimi) and much, much more.

But Twitter. Boy, oh boy. Do I love Twitter.

10 Reasons why I love Twitter.

1. Maybe I love the attention, but updates to the question “What are you doing?“, what am I thinking, feeling, watching (hello live tweeting during television shows!) — is absolutely appealing to me. I just love to tell people about myself and my life!

2. Reading what other people are doing, thinking, feeling, watching, and then interacting with them through the wonderful “@Replies”, totally interesting. To add onto that…

3. Communicating instantly with people either locally or anywhere in the world — in real time! This is so compelling to me. I mean I’ve always loved communicating with people in different places all over the world because I’ve always been something of a forum junkie, but Twitter-wise, I’ve become friends essentially with a TON of local Edmonton people who are all super smart, funny and friendly! Adding onto that

4. Getting quick advice, help, and answers to your random questions! Twitter is SO great for that! You tweet a question, maybe properly hashtag (more on that below) it with a relevant location or word related to your question, and I guarantee you will get several @Replies back with tips and tricks or whatever it is you’re looking for! :-) Great for feedback.

5. #Hashtags!! The #yeg hashtag as well as #hashtagging my tweets that are related to shows I’m watching while tweeting have connected me with a ton of interesting people! Hashtags are also extremely useful for reading news happening live at an event. For example, on Barack Obama’s Inauguration day, searching #inaug09 or #inauguration09 would give you a list of live tweets, updated every few seconds, from people all over the world discussing the inauguration and even tweets from people actually at the inauguration!

6. Okay I’m sure a lot of people start using Twitter for this very reason (I know I did, LOL) … Getting updates from celebrities who tweet!!!! Notably Ashton Kutcher, David Henrie, Ryan Seacrest, etc.

7. Following news outlets and journalists! This might just be because I’m in the field of journalism, but Twitter is ridiculously useful in terms of receiving Breaking News and well, just news in general. The New York Times, LA Times, locally with the Edmonton Journal and yes I will refer to this amazingly addictive celebrity blog as a “news outlet”: Oh No They Didn’t, are all on Twitter and I must say getting quick, 140 character updates from a variety of news organizations all to my Twitter homepage (which I am on ALL the time) — sooooo convenient.

It’s very interesting to follow the actual reporters/TV anchors from news outlets as well! I’m following a ton of local ones (Global Edmonton’s Lynda Steele, CTV Edmonton’s Carrie Doll, the Edmonton Journal’s Sandra Sperounes and more!)

With all these talks about how Twitter is changing journalism, it’s really fascinating to actually see journalists in action using Twitter to find an interview or tweet something that adds more personal depth to something they might have written or reported on.

8. The slang!!! Twitter has created a plethora of cute, catchy, and sometimes ridiculous twitter-related terms! Add “Twit” , “Tweet” or “Tw” to an already-existing word and you got yourself a new Twitter term, honestly. Real-life meet ups with people from Twitter are called “Tweetups“, people who use Twitter are called “Tweeple“, a “Twoosh” is an exact 140 character tweet, and the list goes on! Check out SiteMasher’sTwittonary” for more Twitter-related terms and tools! (Seriously! Twittonary! LOL).

9. The power and potential of Twitter in terms of assisting non-profit organizations and raising money and/or awareness! From “TweetsGiving”, “Trick-or-Tweet”, “Tweet-a-thons”, and the biggest of all – Twestival – Twitter has been used to support various charity projects! I think Tweeple (haha!) are all super supportive and really interested in taking part in Twitter-based events and projects like these and it’s a great thing. Twitter, changing the world one Tweet at a time! Haha. I mean, Twestival alone raised $250,000 USD in a single day for charity: water for goshsake! Who knows what it could be used for in the future.

10. TWITTER IS FUN!!! And it’s pretty awesome to see more and more people now are giving it a shot and becoming just as addicted as I am!

And to that end, here’s an article I wrote about Edmonton’s “Twestival” back in February! “A Twitter of Activity!”

And because yes I want to tie every blog back to the Best Job in the World somehow (and if you didn’t notice it in that “twoosh” example up there, ha!) … I promise I will send daily updates to Twitter about all of my touristy adventures on the islands of the Great Barrier Reef if chosen as the Island Caretaker!!! :D

Linda

6 Comments

  • Bill says:

    Linda, Looking forward to reviewing your Island Caretaker video..

    I’ve Got a Golden Ticket

  • Linda Hoang says:

    Hi Bill!

    I have read your reviews of Clare and Julia :-) Can’t wait to see what you think of my video!

    Linda

  • I also have the same addiction! Thus, i’m reading this! Your friend and Follower, Kevin

  • Zellie says:

    lol, WOW! Now there is a show of twitter love!

    I’m kinda iffy on it. The character limit drives me crazy, I like more depth to what I read. But then a lot of people will link out to the depth so you can skim pretty easily and pick out what you want to know more about.

    What I’ve really been liking is that I see the @replies for people on my list and a lot of those have led me to other people. I wish it was a litle easier to figure out what people were replying to so I wouldn’t have to scroll, scroll, scroll!

    The immediacy is also fantastic and I love that people can text updates.

  • Linda Hoang says:

    Thanks for reading Kevin!! :D

    Zellie – Haha!! I know I might have went a little overboard with the images and examples but I think they add more to the blog :)

    I think the character limit is kind of awesome because it really forces you to be as succinct and to-the-point as you can. And well it’s about as much characters Is I get for a text message so it crosses over well for me.

    Yeah @Replies are definitely useful for that too! For instance I saw someone @Reply TheEllenShow and thus discovered Ellen Degeneres now has Twitter!!! :D

    *nods*

  • Merlin31 says:

    I work in web development and really – it’s great. ,

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