The new year came about in slightly odd style for me, confined as I was to bed with a reasonably decent hot toddy. Similarly the news that one Rupert Murdoch had joined twitter caused much consternation. Mostly I was just shocked that it either wasn’t a fake or had managed somehow to fake it’s way into being verified. The fact that it has since proven to be real has, I must say, actually given me some respect for the man. Many a senior employee in many a company would do well to engage with the future rather than rail against it.
So, when did I first join twitter? And why? Well it’s almost four and a half years ago now, or 13,639 tweets ago. My friend Ian (@maniacyak) had recently joined and had been mentioning it for some time. I was massively sceptical as to why I would use twitter when the only use I could see for it was updating my FaceBook status. I couldn’t see the use in yet another social network. Here’s my first tweet:
plotting how to use 240 litres of compost
— Alex Ingram (@nuttyxander) June 13, 2007
Boring, isn’t it? It drew comments on FaceBook and no response whatsoever on twitter. I duly followed @maniacyak back for snaring me in and then a few of my other friends joined over the coming months, but I hit a problem. I had nothing interesting to say I wouldn’t rather blog or place on FaceBook, and not enough interesting people to say it to or to read things from. I’d log on to twitter.com every so often read the few tweets that had appeared since I last logged on and then leave.
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