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What do they say it is?
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
What do we say it is?
A micro-blogging platform. Twitter is a really simple way to update fans, friends and colleagues about what you’re up to. Think of it as the cool ‘status update’ bit of Facebook without all the nonsense with the vampires. Best of all, you can send and receive twitter updates (or ‘tweets’) via SMS – so you can do it anywhere.
What’s great about it?
As the recipient of tweets, it’s a fabulous way to get a collective impression of what all of the people who are important to you have been up to. But as a musician or music business – this is a great way of letting your ‘followers’ know what you’re doing, what’s coming up – where you’re playing… and so on. Best of all, it’s really simple – and the 140 character SMS limit keeps you brief and interesting.
What could be better?
It would be so great if the free messaging was rolled out to more places… and it’s a bit of a concern that there’s no clear way that they’re making money from this. It’s also easy to over-communicate and simply add to the information overload that we’re all feeling.
How can I use this?
Sign up and start telling the world what you’re up to. You might want to do it personally – or you may just want to stick to the professional side of what you do. If you’re a working musician, you pretty much need to be on Twitter so people who have a vested interest in what you do can feel in the loop.
Should I pay it any attention?
Absolutely. It’s not a perfect system, and like most people, you may take a few goes at it before you figure out how best to use it for your own purposes – but you will end up on Twitter, so you might as well make a start on it now.