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(I hope!)

Bad news this morning.
Access to one my favourite Oz sources of news & information (after "Aunty" - the ABC) will change drastically early next year. Sounds like the focus will be quite different, too. Sigh.
R.I.P. the AGE. Sad

:

Fairfax slashes 1,900 jobs and downsizes Age, Herald:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-18/fairfax-cuts-jobs-goes-compact/4076732

Shock & sadness on local ABC radio talkback this morning.
Though it has been pretty clear, really, that all Oz newspapers have been struggling for quite a time now & that change was inevitable.
Ah well, there's nothing we can do about it.
Apart from move with the times, I guess.

One of the (newspaper industry) callers to the ABC said that these days he relies on twitter as his no 1 source of news.
Interesting I thought, & rather surprising!
I became a subscriber to twitter a while back but have never actually posted to it. (Ha. I have just one "follower". ... GetUp, bless them. Wink

)

Anyway, the point of this thread is to ask those of you who use twitter a lot: what do you use it for & how useful you find it as a source of information (and/or whatever other purposes)?

Do any of you use it as your first port of call for news, like that caller to ABC radio this morning?

Are there any Twitter posters you'd recommend as excellent sources of information?

Any advice at all about what you think it would be useful for an about-to- become-tweeter to know? Assume I know next to nothing & you'll be very close to the mark!

Later on when I (hopefully) become a lot more familiar with twitter, I'll probably ask for advice regarding "new user"- type questions.

So far this morning I've gotten as far as changing my password (which I'd forgotten, of course! Wink

) & have begun reading all the new user help information.

Thanks in advance to anyone who might respond,
Olga

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[+3] - jespah - 06/18/2012I use Twitter for business-type stuff. Mainly to showcase my social media chops as I continue to look for work in that area. When I was working with the 'bot boys, it was to showcase their work,...

@msolga,

Oh & any other A2Kers who are in a similar twitter boat to me, please feel free to post your questions here, too.
Hopefully the more knowledgeable here will respond & enlighten us. Smile

I suspect I'm not alone in wanting to know more. Wink

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This is funny.
I decided to "follow" one of my federal parliamentarians on twitter. (at least I've worked out how to do something so far!)
I have just received an email from him telling me he's now following me! ... & how I can also follow him on FaceBook! (is this how it works? You follow me & I'll follow you? I may have to post something soon!) Razz

One thing at a time, Adam.
Early days yet! Wink

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

(I hope!)

Bad news this morning.
Access to one my favourite Oz sources of news & information (after "Aunty" - the ABC) will change drastically early next year. Sounds like the focus will be quite different, too. Sigh.
R.I.P. the AGE. :

That's a shame. I actually check The Age on-line fairly frequently, mostly to see footy scores.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Is that AFL footy you're referring to, Joe?
Really?

You wouldn't be that US fellow who participates in Lindy Burns's football tipping competition on (ABC radio) 774 on Friday nights, would you? He's from Chicago.
Nah ...that would have to be way too much of a coincidence!

As to the reduced online accessibility to Fairfax newspapers in the future ... that includes The AGE in Melbourne & the Sydney Morning Herald .... that is VERY sad & worrying indeed.
Both newspapers (offline & on ) have been the mainstream stalwarts providing the alternative to the (conservative) Murdoch line via News Ltd. And News Limited owns 70% of Australia's news media. An appalling state of affairs.

So I guess I might not be alone right now in planning for the future & checking out twitter as an alternative source of news?

-

1 Reply

I'm wondering: is A2K more Facebook territory than twitter territory?

Come to think of it, I can't recall too many occasions where A2Kers have referred to information they acquired via twitter, compared to heaps of Facebook examples.

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

Is that AFL footy you're referring to, Joe?
Really?

Sure. ESPN, a cable TV sports channel, used to broadcast select AFL games (this was something like twenty years ago -- I don't think it does that any more). Watching those broadcasts, I developed a certain sympathy for St. Kilda, who, at that time, were simply terrible. They've gotten a lot better in recent years, but they still can't manage to win it all. I view them as the Chicago Cubs of Australian rules football.

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I use Twitter for business-type stuff. Mainly to showcase my social media chops as I continue to look for work in that area. When I was working with the 'bot boys, it was to showcase their work, linking to images, youtube videos, etc.

For my own stuff, now, it's to link to blog posts (and even older blog posts), link to other content I find online that's interesting, report what I'm doing/seeing around town that's social media-related, or give a shout-out to social media people, either in the area or well-known ones.

Many other aspiring social media folk are doing more or less the same thing, hence it can be a great deal of noise.

But one thing about the 'net, and not just Twitter - most people see things a good seven times before they act. The act is anything from clicking to reading to posting to tagging to actually giving up a credit card number and buying. Hence the showcasing of even older blog posts is important as they may not have been seen before. If all you did was look at my own, personal Twitter stream, I'm sure you'd be bored silly. But if you're looking at my Twitter stream plus that of fifty other people, mine is only one part of that. It's highly unlikely that you would notice the twenty times in six months that I mention an old blog post. I'll be lucky if you see it once or twice (remember what I said about seven times?).

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@joefromchicago,

Gosh, fancy that!
In that case, I've just become newest supporter of the Chicago Cubs.
Go Cubs! Wink

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@jespah,

Thanks, jespah.
Interesting.

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Looks like there aren't too many A2Kers who use the twitter for the sort of purposes I had in mind.
Never mind. I guess it'll have to be a case of plugging away until I get the hang of it & see what eventuates.
I still haven't tweeted yet. (ha) Working my way up to it, though! Wink

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