LOL - If Twitter is down, Twitterholics will find another way to Twitter - check this out:

[Pirate Smile]

Going Way Old School

08.06.09 -- 11:38AM By Josh Marshall

Across the street from our office, some people have just taped a big paper sign on their balcony that reads "@cliffbot: twitter is down"

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/08/going_way_old_school.php?ref=fpblg

[uberblonde]

1. Heh.

That is really funny!
:rofl:

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. What attracts people so much to twitter? nt

[Pirate Smile]

3. You can use it like we use DU. I posted this semi-explanation in April:

Who you choose to follow, not who is following you, determines if you get anything out of it.

It is like a permanent open thread/LBN and you pick whose comments you want to see. Comments you want
to see can include a ton of websites which post the headlines and links whenever they add a new story or thread.

You get Breaking News from a variety of sources you choose as soon as they get posted online - NYT, MSNBC, The Hill, WSJ, Marketwatch, Think Progress, Media Matters, etc. AND posts telling you when blogs you like post a new story or thread - The Daily Dish, Daily Kos, AmericaBlog, Wonkette, Swampland, etc.

You can also talk to reporters - ask questions, complain, point out information you think they aren't aware of, etc - along with find out what they are doing on their shows, who they'll have on, etc. It definitely helps provide interaction between the public and the reporters/anchors.

You can also respond to politicians like Claire McCaskill, Grassley, etc. (Last night McCaskill tweeted that she thought the town hall people were just regular citizens. She got deluged with people posting (tweeting in Twitter-language) and providing links to all the info re how it is all orchistrated.)

There are also people - like on DU - who post while watching the same shows, who have similar POV - bitch about Tweety, or laugh at the same stuff on The Daily Show/Colbert/Rachel Maddow/KO/etc. You see the chatter behind the scenes between reporters and bloggers and politicians. The chatter by the Democrats and Dem bloggers on the tea bag crap has been quite entertaining, ACORN is also the root of all evil.(this was initially posted during the Teabag crap)

That is my quick synopsis of its appeal. It takes a little while to figure it out and it all depends on who you choose to "follow". One way to help figure out who to "follow" (follow just means you see their posts - it doesn't mean you are their sheep) is to look at who the people you have similar interests to are following. You are probably going to have similar interests. You can always stop following anyone when you no longer want to see what they post.

Also, you do NOT have to post (or tweet) anything at all or anything about yourself or what you are doing.

edit to add - you can also correspond with people you already know - you see what they post and can respond back an forth. You also make new friends and respond back and forth. We've seen how they used it in Iran to organize protests.

As with any new media, it is as useful or useless as you make it. People use hashtags (#hcr = health care reform) to follow specific issues. Companies have also responded to people complaining about issues they are having - someone bitching about dealing with Southwest Airlines can get tweeted by Southwest Airlines Cust Serv to try to help because horror stories and bad publicity can spread fast.

[SeattleGirl]

4. Perfect explanation, Pirate.

I follow lots of news services (MSM and not-so-MSM), as well as some politicians, political writers, etc. It's like a quick scan of what's going on, and if I see something that is particularly interesting to me and the tweeter has linked to an article, I can check it out.

I also follow a couple of local news stations, which I do primarily for their traffic updates. There was a grass fire next to the main freeway through Seattle the other day, with massive backups. A coworker has to go that way to get home. I told her about it as soon as I saw it, so she knew when she left she needed to go an alternative route.

[Pirate Smile]

5. I should have added this point which was made well by Joe Scar - he said he likes

European football. I'm sure there aren't that many people he knows personally that follow it that closely but he said that on Twitter there is a bunch of people (from all over the Country and World) who like the same team, follow their matches and what is going on with the players, coaches, etc. So it has created this community of people with the same interest who chatter about this one topic they like and they kind of become friends.

You can find people with the same interests to talk to, get info from, etc. and who doesn't like that?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. Kinda sounds like facebook, only with more groups and smaller posts lol nt

[NashVegas]

8. Major Wank Factor

I Tweet. If others Tweet back to me, I exist.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. LOL! Good point nt

[anigbrowl]

15. This is nothing at all like posting on DU, of course.

[BlooInBloo]

6. Twitter isn't down for me.

[Pirate Smile]

7. It is back now. It was down for hours earlier.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Ah. There was a DOS attack....

"NEW YORK - A hacker attack Thursday shut down the fast-growing messaging service Twitter, and Facebook also said it was looking into possible site problems.

Twitter said in its status blog Thursday that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through.

For Twitter users, the outage meant no tweeting about lunch plans, the weather or the fact that Twitter is down.

The Twitter outage began at about 9 a.m. EDT, said Ken Godskind, chief strategy officer at Web performance monitoring company AlertSite."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/twitter-struggles-to-fend_n_252971.html

[tridim]

12. I'm so old I remember when Twitter used to be called IRC..

Sometime back in the late 80's/early 90's.

[BlooInBloo]

14. Totally. I also remember technology changing, and me adapting to it...

Using it when appropriate, using something else when not. So many memories.

[central scrutinizer]

13. back to two tin cans and a taut string