Tweaks to How I'm Using Twitter
Twitter is what I hoped it would be: a way to stay in touch with friends. The way I use it has continued to evolve. Here are some notes.
I made my timeline public. It means I've moved away from the idea of Twitter as a backchannel for activities like work, but I was never able to get traction with that idea. In truth, I consider everything on the Internet public anyway, so simply marking a timeline private wasn't sufficient for me to tweet freely.
My public timeline complements my personal blog. If people want to know who I am, they can follow me or read my timeline to get a better picture. Maybe I'm setting the example: I wish I could learn more about the job candidates I'm phone screening and interviewing. I assume they want to know about me, too.
I'm using text messaging to receive tweets when I am out of the office in the evening and on weekends. I can't overstate how this changes the Twitter experience. With a 140-character tweet you get to know how that person's weekend is going, and you learn about it when you're out doing stuff too. It's a great way to stay connected to people when you're not camped in front of the computer. You should at least experiement with it and see what you think. It's also convinced me there is at least one more major breakthrough in social network applications coming once the right mobile platform arrives to enable it.
