15 Jan 09 Top Aussies on Twitter

I was recently included by the blog Marketingeasy Internet Marketing Explained on a list of 20 Australians you should be following on Twitter.  I was very flattered and surprised and would like to extend my thanks to the article’s author Lucio Dias Ribero.  I actually have been spending quite a lot of time on twitter; I have posted 1,371 updates to date.  What is twitter? “Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, “What are you doing?” by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called “tweets”, to your friends, or “followers.” The short format of the tweet is a defining characteristic of the service, allowing informal collaboration and quick information sharing that provides relief from rising email and IM fatigue.” More info here at tweeternet:

While it isn’t easy to post much that is particularly meaningful in a message limited to 140 characters, messages develop meaning in threads and before long, you start to appreciate the unique culture that is the twitterhood.  I’ve always been impressed by how friendly the atmosphere is; unlike many chatrooms there is never a hint of acrimony.  I’ve met a great many very interesting people and I follow a few famous people like @stephenfry, @johncleese and @mchammer.

The popularity of twitter as a social networking service can largely be explained by it’s high level of connectivity.  While many choose to tweet directly from the twitter web page, there are a great many applications, like twhirl and tweetdeck available which provide useful additional functions.  A huge range of other services exist, such as friendfeed and twitterfeed (which allows your blog’s rss feeds, or any rss feed to be sent as a tweet to twitter) mytweeple which allows users to organise, add and remove followers and followed, and stats sites like twitterrank and twitter grader.  Indeed there are new services springing up all the time and there far too many to mention here.  Twitter’s search engine visiblility and connectivity explains why it is so popular among many bloggers and online marketers.

This is the entry Lucio made about me on his list:

Liamalexander
Company/Website: Liamalexander.com/blog/
WHO?: Guitarist, artist, web designer, teacher, geek
WHY: Can talk Dexter, politics, art, photography, technology, the environment and something else.
HERE: http://twitter.com/liamalexander

It’s kind of strange seeing your whole personality expressed in a compressed form.  It’s like the entry about earth in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: mostly harmless.  Still, I am more than happy to see my name on the list; I actually rate higher than the Prime Minister.  As Andy Warhol said; everyone gets their five minutes of fame.

Tags: Add new tag, top aussies on twitter, top twitter users, twitter, twitter services