Thing #19: Web 2.0 Awards

I really enjoyed checking out the list of Web 2.0 award winners. I saw names I recognized and a bunch I didn't. Over the course of the next months, I plan to investigate even more of them, but for this "assignment" I chose to check out Twitter, which won first place in the Social Networking Mainstays category. First, I'd read about it in several other library professionals' blogs or seen links to their Twitter pages, but what really caught my attention is that it came in first place over Facebook and MySpace, which seemed like quite a feat to me since those names are immensely popular, verging on eponymous with social networking. I wanted to see what Twitter had over them.

If I had to describe Twitter in one sentence, it would be, "It's a social network where people post 'updates,' little blurbs of 140 characters or less about where they are or what they're doing, or their latest observations about life, etc.) as often as they like that other people can sign up to follow and vice verse."

I signed up, posted a tweet (what folks call the updates about their lives), and thought, "Now what?" The directions page said the whole point was to tell people what you're doing at any given moment. That's what it's all about. I thought it was all rather anticlimactic. Just a few days earlier, I'd set up a MySpace page, which was a whole lot more fun since I got to write a few paragraphs "about me" and choose music and a skin and embed other cool widgets.

I spent some time looking for friends on Twitter, but I didn't find anyone I knew. I wasn't keeping up with anyone else and no one else was keeping up with me. It seemed rather pointless, and I was disappointed.

Then, I was reading the Houston Chronicle online, and a headline caught my eye: The tweet life is all about the social. How timely! It was an article about Twitter! After reading this article, it all makes much more sense now. The part that was missing for me was the most essential: the networking! Duh.

Now the question is, How does this benefit me professionally? I can see it as a great way for librarians and/or teachers to let others know about successes they've experienced. On those days when I've facilitated a lesson that went well...beyond expectation...and I'm riding the high that comes with it, I want to share it with others. Not just my emotions, but how it all worked, what caused it to go so well, even what could be done better next time. In the past, this sharing usually took place via impromptu chats with other teachers in the hallway after school. That was great, but I see Twitter as an opportunity to share with even more people. And now that I'm a librarian, and a "one-of-a-kind" on my campus, I don't have the opportunity for hallway chat with colleagues (meaning other librarians...of course I still chat with the teachers). Blogs are a wonderful way to share, but sometimes I don't feel the energy or committment to a blog. There's a feeling that blog entries should be longer, more in depth. With Twitter, I can jot off a few sentences and not feel the pressure of the "fully-loaded" blog entry. Twitter is like the sticky-note version. Likewise, I can see what successes and frustrations my fellow librarians are experiencing. And the best things is that it's asynchronous, so we don't all have to be in the same place at the same time to offer each other support.

Anybody else on Twitter? Let me know so I can add you!