A post I made on Pentrace about thoughts on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

What the big deal is about. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. - (warning: long post)
Posted by Mark Bacas (mbacas) on June 17, 2009, 11:42 pm, in reply to “Please explain - what is the big deal about Face Book….why not just write a letter? “

These are just some of my thoughts/opinions.

First let me say that I don’t believe that Facebook or Twitter would have to replace the hand written letter. If one has close friends and one likes to write then they should write their friends a letter. I’m sure they’d appreciate it much more than a comment on Facebook or tweet on Twitter.

That being said I believe the electronic social interaction places have their place.

For one, how could you even write a letter to a high school friend you haven’t talked to in a long time? How would you know where to send the letter to? Especially ladies that have gotten married and their last names are now different. You couldn’t even look them up.

Facebook allows you to enter where you went to high school, college, and past employment and then suggests people you might know. I have talked with old high school friends and past colleagues that I haven’t talked to in years.

I can take pictures with my iPhone while on vacation and post that to Facebook. From there my family and friends can see them. I’m not going to write a letter to all of them after the vacation, but its there if they want to see and it’s easy for me to share.

Also, I don’t expect someone like Kim Sosin to write me a letter, let alone send me 120 pictures of her trip to Paris, however, I can go to her Facebook page and see them.

Why does one post here on Pentrace? Because it’s a place of interest. Well, to some, Facebook is “their” place of interest. It’s where they go to share information.

All that being said, there are downsides to Facebook (at least to me). The things it does well is allowing you to connect to friends and colleagues (both current and past). The things I don’t care for are all the “fluff”. There is a lot of “extra” stuff that comes along with Facebook. You can be poked, given virtual gifts that people want you to give them back, there are applications, and advertising. And lots of other distractions.

This is where Twitter comes into play. Twitter is much more straight forward. You post or receive “tweets/messages” of 140 characters. You “follow” (and receive tweets) from people that say things that interest you. If after following them they say things that don’t interest you, you “unfollow” them (and no longer receive there tweets). You also receive “tweets” when people mention your name (twitter ID).

For instance this guy mentioned that he bought a Pelikan instead of an iPhone. I sent him a message saying that it was good to see he had his priorities straight. He tweeted back:

unixfudotnet @mbacas Yeah, Cartesio notebook + fine nib Pelikan M200 = *drool*

CNN breaking news posts a tweet on any breaking news.

I follow a lot of pen people, tech people, news companies, and others. I don’t have to goto their blog or website to see what they might be talking about, it shows up right in my twitter stream.

Lance Armstrong isn’t going to write me about his latest biking escapades, but I follow him and they show up in my twitter stream.

http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong

Lance Armstrong - Video from today’s training/hail storm. http://tinyurl.com/lzuen8

Or perhaps he posts a tweet about too much “twittering” being done in main stream media:

Lance Armstrong - This is pretty funny. http://tinyurl.com/kww4fb

There other nice thing about Twitter as opposed to Facebook is that you can search for tweets containing certain things. So if you want to see what people are saying that include “fountain pens” you can do that. http://u.nu/4iq4

I’ve communicated with several people this way when they had questions about their fountain pen.

I have also sent tweets to a well known professional photographer and gotten tweets with recommendations and information sent back to me.

Some people with lots of “followers” will use this to their advantage. Say, they are having a problem with “xyz”. They post a tweet saying, “Hey, I’m having a problem getting XYZ to work, can anyone help out”. Well, some of these people have 10s of thousands of followers. It can also be used to “spread news” or other tips, etc.

There is lots more to Twitter. Too much to get into in a message here.

Signing up for Facebook or Twitter does not equal “using” Facebook or Twitter. You can just “sign-up” for Twitter and expect to get anything out of it. You have to find people of “interest” to you and follow them.

Signing up and not using them would be like coming here to Pentrace, posting a message, never coming back, never seeing if anyone responded and then when someone sees you at the next pen show and asks you what you think about Pentrace you say, “Oh, I’ve been there, but it’s not for me. I don’t see what the big deal is. Just a bunch of people talking about pens and stuff. If I want to talk about pens I do it in person. What’s with all this online stuff, who needs it”.

Oh, I almost forgot about Tumblr. Tumblr can be used on it’s own or can be an extension of Twitter. On Tumblr you can post text message, links to websites, images, video, chat sessions, and more. You can link this to Twitter and when you post an update on your Tumblr page it automatically gets posted on Twitter with a link to your Tumblr page.

http://mbacas.tumblr.com

Again, just my opinions/thoughts. If you want to discuss more feel free to email me. mbacas@gmail.com

Regards,

- Mark

(dang, just did a preview, this was much longer than I thought/expected, sorry about that)

However, it’s something I’ve been thinking about and meaning to create a post on anyway.