Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings

You might have already noticed, but I finally hopped onto the Twitter bandwagon. You can see my latest tweets in the sidebar (it’s the “What I’m Doing” section), and I currently have it auto-posting a daily summary here on the blog (courtesy of the Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress). I’m not sure if I’ll continue that or not, though. Of course, if you are also on Twitter, you can just follow my tweets with whatever method you prefer.

When Twitter first started, I didn’t think I’d see much value in it. Like many, I figured, “I’ve already got a blog, why would I need another service to maintain?” Then, Alex King asked me to look at a couple of things in his Twitter Tools plugin, so I signed up, just for testing things out. And also like many other people, I discovered that the deliberately small messages draw you in to making quick updates. Even though I’ve found it hard to make longer regular posts (like this one), posting a quick tweet on Twitter doesn’t distract me for long enough to interrupt my work flow in any significant way. Eventually, I’ll probably start reading and posting tweets from my phone, but for now, the web view, IM notices, and RSS feed serve my needs.

If you’re using Twitter, what was your reaction — was it similar to mine? Or did you immediately jump in? Or did you decide that you didn’t have a use for it? Do you use it more for posting your own thoughts, or for following others? If you haven’t tried it yet, why not?