Tor.com tweets now. You can follow the goings at:
Tor.com Twitter
In my limited experience, Twitter has been the only social networking tool that actually works in the real world. Although Myspace, ugly as it is, is a useful mailing list for events. Facebook may look better than Myspace, but after all the doughnuts and vampire bites I quickly found it to be a complete pain in the ass. Twitter sounded like the dumbest idea, like, evar, but with Patrick Nielsen Hayden's encouragement (yes, I blame you, Patrick) I tried it out. After a slow start, I'm now addicted. I just wish there were more artists on it. But then, it's entirely text based so...
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Twitter me this, Batman!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Twitter's that mini-posting site, right? If so, it makes sense that it works, as few people actually bother to read anything anymore, unfortunately.
Well, its more about letting friends into the small everyday rhythms of your life.
Typical MondayAM office conversation might be:
"Nice weekend?"
"Yes. Yours?"
"Great"
With Twitter its more like, "Hey, how did X go?" Followed by talking about X,Y, and possibly Z.
My Twitter friends are mostly authors, and it's nice to see mention of what they are working on. Then I can go check out their sites, which is I think what social networking overall should do for a creator. It's a more immediate feeling, what they are working on right at this moment.
I twitter occasionally with some other artists. Mostly text i.e. "Just finished that magazine job, yadda, yadda, yadda.." But if you have a website or online photo album like Flickr you can always post a link to an image there. Not as convenient as just dropping it into a blog though. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Twitter people come out with picture embedding in the near future--as long as they can do it in a way that doesn't compromise the essential simplicity of Twiiter.
I also thought the whole idea was pretty silly at first, but my wife talked me into trying it.
I have my reservations about social networking. It's tricky. I have friends. I talk to them. I'm looking to further myself professionally--I'm a freelance book designer and layout artist--thru my use of social networking. Otherwise, I'm afraid it can be a sinkhole.
So I've confined my social networking to LinkedIn and Twitter. LinkedIn is billed as the social networking tool for professional purposes. But I've found Twitter--set up, if I understand correctly, for people to stay in touch with friends--to be a better way for me to connect with people involved in publishing.
Toward that end I try to follow publishers, writers, other book designers and layout artists, and like that. Hopefully, these sorts of people will follow me. Hopefully, some will check out the work samples on my website, read my take on book design on my blog, and remember me when they need a freelance book designer.
I like Twitter because it's a nonintrusive way to pass on information about my life that really doesn't warrant a full blog post by itself; or to ask my collective braintrust; or (the most useful of all) to coordinate meeting friends.
I wish there were more artists on it, too. (btw, I'm on there as culfinglin, and have been following you for a while.) Seems like you've got a really cool, tight community of artists there at Tor. ;)
That explains why I never saw a response from you on my Facebook friend request.....All the vampire bites, mob invitations and other game-time silliness drive me crazy, but it's a good way to stay in touch with old friends.
I'll have to check Twitter out a little more.
Twitter seems application free. Which is a good thing. A VERY good thing.
I need to use it more.
Stephan - You bring up an interesting point: How important/possible is it to keep business and personal relationships apart. It seems fairly common in publishing to form real friendships with the people you work with or might work with. It can get a little sticky sometimes but just about everybody I know is either an illustrator or in publishing.
(One of the reasons I keep threatening to go back to studiyng Aikido is to know a few people that I can't talk shop with. Of course, being in shape and regaining some semblance of posture would be a much better reason to go back. Some day, someday.)
As a crabby anti-social grump, I have to say that while social networking software may have its uses... let's not get too social, eh?
Post a Comment