and if I do am I a twit or tweeter or a twitterer? I once had this conversation with a friendly sub (what an oxymoron) back home. She insisted that I was "twit". You can't argue with them. I suspect they have secret fraternity meetings about style and convention in their spare time but let's not let my imagination run away with me.
I think the most shocking thing to me about the twitter phenomenon is that now even my 50-something-year-old father has an account He claims he has been enjoying keeping in touch with people who have similar interests to him around the world. What next Dad? Surprise me.
I'm a Mafikizolo (Johnny-come-lately) to twitter. Seriously. Compared to my facebook abilities, twitter is still very much a learning area for me. Having so much choice in terms of who to follow and who not to leaves me befuddled. Do I follow hundreds or thousands of people, or just a few interesting ones? And I'm finding the site rather difficult to navigate. Eyewitness News flood the page with updates, and searching and adding other people is becoming quite a mission. Let's hope I get it right before Natasha Joseph's next blogging seminar on Friday.
Speaking of Ms. Joseph, who reckons that only women can multitask, her Friday seminars are proving effective in shedding light on the gloomy darkness that is savvy SNS use. Well, minus the slow Internet and blocked sites, but that's not her fault.
The art of tweeting news stories appears to be strikingly similar to blurb and headline writing. I can barely tell the difference. I guess it's all about grabbing people's attention.
I'm pretty sure that if I get my tweeting skills right, I'd be able to effectively use it in the newsroom to be more er... efficient. You know, get information quicker etc.
But, there is still one major burning issue I have with this.
I feel Durban newsrooms are far more competitive and I've experienced encounters with people saying that you have to be careful about what you say in public forums about your work and stories because you not supposed to tip off your competition. They talk about things like exclusivity and scoops. Gives me the shudders. It's a tough issue, but I'll have to strike a balance.
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