My history of social networking is fairly uneventful, I've never
really got into it in a big way, but I've enjoyed dabbling with it.
I signed up to MySpace years ago, and soon got bored of it. Then I joined Facebook. Which would be brilliant if it wasn't so saturated with spammy apps.
The "biggest thing" at the moment seems to be Twitter,
which oddly is also the smallest thing in terms of what it does - just
short messages, of no more than 140 characters (although they can
include hyperlinks). That's about it really. You can post to Twitter
from your computer, or even from your phone (via SMS, or via mobile
Internet).
You can view the latest messages posted by the entire Twitter community
if you want (although you can choose for your own messages not to show
in this bit), or you can view the recent messages from the people
you've chosen to follow.
These can be your real life friends if you want, but it seems that most
people use it to follow celebrities so that they can regularly receive
important updates about the minutiae of their celebrity lives.
Some celebrities provide genuinely interesting updates about what they
are up to, while others seem to have PR people running their Twitter
accounts for them, which can make them a bit boring to follow.
Stephen Fry is one of the most popular people you can follow, and he
treats his virtual stalkers with a near-constant stream of updates,
wherever in the world he might happen to be. He is also known for
interacting with his followers more than most.
On one occasion, he posted messages to Twitter (an act known as
"tweeting", with the messages themselves being referred to as "tweets")
from inside a lift he happened to get stuck in - he even posted
pictures of himself and the other unfortunates during their
incarceration:
In a way, it was as if all of us who Follow him where in there with
him. Although not literally of course as 750,000+ people in a lift
together for several hours would no doubt be somewhat unpleasant, even
with Mr Fry present to provide his well-loved witty banter.
If you haven't already, come out and play with the Twitterers!
tweet this!
