Blue Chi’s

Twitter is the hottest thing on the Internet right now, yet people either do not understand, think it is silly, or are addicted to it. In Oman, Twitter is steadily gaining popularity as more people and companies join it. For those who still do not know what this is, Twitter is a service that lets you send very short messages (140 letters or less) to people who follow you. If you are on Facebook, think of it as a website dedicated to status updates, and instead of being restricted to friends you know, it is public.

The short messages of Twitter can be used in a number of ways. The most commonly understood method is to simply use it as an answer to the question “What are you doing right now?”. Your answer could be anything from “Having my famous cereal for breakfast” to “Running late for work as usual”. These are updates that enable your friends to know what you are doing at any moment.

The second function for Twitter is to use it as a chat platform. Twitter enables its users to reply to each others messages instantly using a myriad of devices. If you need a quick answer to a short question, like the location of a restaurant or an advice on something to buy, you can make an update on Twitter and get a short answer from any of your followers quickly.

The third function of Twitter is to use it as a source of real time news, whether it came from professional industries or normal people. The concept of a “Retweet”, which is the equivalent to a rebroadcast of a twitter update, makes news spread across the whole of Twitter instantly, so if you found a tweet with breaking news, you can retweet it instantly to your friends who are likely to retweet it even further down the chain.

For people like myself who are officially addicted to service (I have made more than 10,000 status updates since I registered two years ago), Twitter has become part of the lifestyle we follow. My followers know about my life more than anybody else does, and I know a lot about the lives of those who I follow in return. I have used many different methods of communication over the years, but I had never before made a connection with so many people on such a personal level like I have on Twitter. It might sound unnatural to those who don’t user the service, but I now feel that I am part of a community which I cannot abandon easily.

I have been told that I no longer have any privacy because people know every single move I make from the minute I wake up until the minute I decide to stop reading my novel in bed and go off to sleep. I have to admit that I am no longer sure about the extent to which I should disclose personal information about myself, and I do not advise anyone to tweet as much as I do, but I believe that the whole world is still trying to understand social media and it will take us a while to establish a common etiquette for using such a service. Until that happens we will have to tweet using common sense to ensure that we do not harm ourselves and those close to us by exposing too much information to the rest of the world.

My previous post on my addiction to Twitter attracted a lot of replies, many were written by people who are not Twitter. I have reached this stage where quitting Twitter is NOT an option. I feel that I am part of a community of people I care about and whom I have no other direct regular method of communication with. I am, like the majority of people in my Twitter circle, having a lot of fun on Twitter, I’m meeting new people, learning about new things to do in town and discussing topics through methods that cannot be replicated on any other medium. I just CANNOT QUIT.

What I would like to do is be able to carry on with my life and still have fun on Twitter like everybody else. I have developed a simple strategy to be able to do this. First of all, I decided to CLOSE DOWN TweetDeck when I’m doing something else. It is really not rocket science, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to do anything else when there are 5 new tweet update notifications every 30 seconds. For example, this time I don’t have TweetDeck opened as I’m writing this blog post! See!!!

Second thing, I am going to have a Twitter break each 45 minutes or between switching tasks. This way I will have something to look forward to and will have a systematic method for checking Twitter. In order to time myself I’m using my good old Klok application which I’ve been using for a couple of years now. I cannot live without and I don’t know how I never used it since I got back in town earlier this month. I have Klok installed on my work machine and my computers at home.

I am also starting to get back into a systematic to do list workflow for everything. I have installed a number of iPhone apps and will see which one to go with. Will try using GTD, but not sure if it’ll work.

Finally, I’ve stuck up a new banner in my room to indicate my next goal! I want to receive a 1,000,000 page views a month at the Republic of Code. I’ve been stuck at around 500,000 pageviews a month for a year now and never exceeded. Some of you remember my old banner, which worked. All I need is to have a goal to work towards!

I have already implemented many of these methods today and I managed to respond to all new forum threads, read two chapters in a programming book, AND GO OUT OF THE HOUSE AND BUY A PAIR OF SHOES. I have also chatted with Twitter and had fun with the guys over there. So I think it should work out if I properly focus!

I am going to make a confession, I am addicted to Twitter. I just can’t stop checking it every single minute of the day. I check it before I get out of my bed in the morning, I check it right after I get out of the shower, I check it while I’m having my breakfast, I check it before I leave my room, I check before I start the car, I check it when I’m stopped at a red traffic light, I check it when I get off the car, I check it all throughout the day and I check it one last time when I’m in bed and I decide to go to sleep. I JUST CAN’T STOP CHECKING TWITTER.

I really really like Twitter, I have so much fun chatting with my “online” friends on Twitter, I tell them everything I do, and there is always someone to comment back on my updates. When I am in a shop and not sure what to buy I make a tweet and someone will make a suggestion, when I’m in a restaurant and I don’t know what to have someone will make a recommendation, when my car is stuck because of my careless driving I make a tweet and someone will come to get me towed. I’ve met the majority of the people I chat with all day long and they are all fun and hilarious people, and now I really care about them.

When I’m not actually on Twitter I am most likely talking about it with someone offline, 75% of everything I say to my flatmate starts with “Today on Twitter I read”. I spoke with two people today on the phone and told them about what I did on Twitter and I texted one of my colleagues about what I did on Twitter today. There are days when I say more things on Twitter than actual spoken words offline. It is totally insane.

I just said that I really like Twitter and I enjoy it very much, but I think that’s taken over my life. I really cannot do anything else besides it. I used to accomplish so much in my free time, I’ll write a couple of blog posts, write a tutorial, read a chapter in a law or a programming book, and reply to all new threads at the Republic of Code, but since I got my workstation sorted late last week, I really can’t say that I’ve accomplished ANYTHING. I spend a decent time on my computer still, but I’m JUST CHECKING TWITTER ALL DAY AND NIGHT!!

I don’t have an email notification application because I believe it will interrupt whatever I do and therefore slow me down, but now I can’t force myself to close TweetDeck and it keeps on pinging every single minute with several new tweets from different people. It’s almost like I’m clinically addicted to this thing, I even have it open RIGHT NOW AS I TYPE THIS ON MY SECONDARY SCREEN JUST WAITING FOR A NEW UPDATE TO COME.

SOMEONE SAVE ME!!!!!

Sangeetha at the Digital Oman blog has taken the initiative to organize a gathering to Omani people on Twitter, which I will be attending. If you are on Twitter and going to be in Town on the 8th of October then feel free to come join us!

We are going to meet up in Barista Coffeeshop in Masa Mall at 7pm on the 8th of October.  For more info follow Sangeetha on Twitter and check her blog.

UPDATE: THIS EVENT IS MEANT TO BE FOR PEOPLE WHO USE TWITTER. PLEASE REGISTER AN ACCOUNT ON TWITTER BEFORE JOINING AND THEN POST AT SANGEETHA’S BLOG TO CONFIRM YOUR ATTENDANCE.

A lot of bloggers in Oman are starting to use Twitter these days and it was really fun having a number of people giving us live coverage of Gulf Cup matches using twitter.

One thing I noticed is that the majority of people are using the standard Twitter web portal to tweet, which is extremely bare and does not provide a lot of fuctionality, I am not sure how mny people know that there many different standalone Twitter clients that can enhance your Twitter experience.

I tried a number of clients on the PC and the iPod touch, but the one I would like to talk about today is TweetDeck. This is is a desktop client available for Windows, Mac and Linux that is built on AIR - an Adobe technology for creating desktop applications with online functionality. 

TweetDeck runs on your computer like any other application, it can be minimized to the toolbar. Whenever someone makes a tweet you will get a small IM like notification. TweetDeck has one-click URL shortening, message shortening, TwitPic upload, and friend groups. Like the majority of AIR applications, it is extremely light and has a clean UI.

TweetDeck is free, so if you are a Twitter user there is no reason for you not to give it a try. You will need to install the Adobe AIR runtime if you don’t have that already.

I have previously also tried twhirl - another AIR based desktop client, twitterfic – an application for the iPhone/iPod touch, Twitter Tools – a WordPress plug-in for making tweets (currently using this for Republic of Code twitter account), and the official Twitter Facebook application for posting my tweets as Facebook status updates.

I used the Twitter Mobile Portal in the past, but now I make most of my on-the-go tweets using SMS.

I’m not sure if anybody else uses any special Twitter clients, but Muscati seems to be using TwitterBerry on his Blackberry as you can see from the screenshot above.