Swarmtracking, Spitters, Twitter and the Like
Lots of folks talking about Twitter lately. What it is, what it isn't, what it could be, what it might be. Steve Gillmor has a fascinating post called Swarmtracking on how he tracks tweets with GMail. Scoble recently posted about what he viewed as the Secret to Twitter. Francine Hardaway added her $.02 on how Twitter has changed her life.
Twitter has certainly changed my life, as it has become something that I really enjoy. When (and if) I'm at my office, or at home on the web, I have Twitter running in Twhirl, and I find that it is a better river news view of what's going on than just about anything. It just sort of chirps along with a continual stream of what's happening, some of which is important enough for me to toss in my $.02, some of which just gets absorbed and moves on. Some of which just makes me laugh, and that is of tremendous value these days.
It is fascinating to see the ebb and flow of those that I follow when something breaks that grabs attention. It is even more fascinating to see when something gets tweeted that gets totally passed by.
I don't think, except using it as a window on to the worlds, gestures, and thoughts of some individuals whose virtual company I enjoy, I've figured out much beyond that as to its value. Perhaps, for me, that's enough.
Unless of course Loren Heiny's point that we're seeing more and more Twitter spam spoils the party. By the way Loren calls it Spitter (SPam twITTER) which I think is the first time I've seen that used, but I could be mistaken. I just hope that doesn't become a popular term because we see too much of what it stands for.
