What is with Twitter and me?

Wiki says Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables users to send and read messages known as tweets. In reality, it is much more than that. I do use Twitter and my Twitter handle is @varunkumar. Ever since I have started using Twitter (on Jul 19, 2008), I am very much impressed with it. First thing, that comes to my mind is its simplicity. It is very easy for anyone to get started with Twitter and its concepts.

Stats on @varunkumar

Following : 192 | Followers : 232 | Listed : 16 | Tweets : 2182 | Favorite App  : Echofon

What do I use it for?

Many say that I am addicted to Twitter. Many say that I just spam on Twitter. I have a different perspective here. All my tweets can be briefly classified into two categories: 1. Informative Tweet. Sharing the information (be it as a news article, latest on technology, promotion of some interesting blog posts) of my interests for those with similar interests. 2. Personal Tweet. Contents for the friends who do follow me. I do use #hashtags as applicable to my tweets. You can filter them based on the hashtags and ignore things which will not be of any use to you.

How does it help me?

• Faster learning. Twitter makes sure the information is just a click-away from you. I am learning a lot day-after-day through the updates from the people I follow. Its like  a group-study environment where in I can grab bits and pieces of my interests.
• Online Identity. Twitter gives me an online identity (@varunkumar). Many of my followers know just about @varunkumar but they do not know who is Varunkumar Nagarajan. Yesterday, I got introduced to Sameer (@psam - one of the big shots on Twitter) as Varun. Though he is following me on Twitter, he could not recognize me. But, he was able to recognize @varunkumar. 
• Really real-time. Twitter gives really real time data. Two incidents I would like to quote here:
  1. Twitter helped us a lot during TEDxHitechCity, 2010. We had provided WiFi to all the participants of the event and they were tweeting with the hashtag #TEDxHitechCity. Participants were providing live feedback on Twitter about the event. That helped us to improve then itself. There were tweets complaining about the lighting and sound quality. We fixed the issue on the go and it was very much appreciated.
  2. Being a die-hard Cricket fan, I do not want to miss any of the cricket matches. But, I had to catch up with few folks for dinner yesterday and things got pretty late out there. There was this interesting match between India Vs South Africa. We just logged onto Twitter and believe me or not, the updates were very much faster than the popular sites like Cricinfo and Cricbuzz. Impressed!!
• Be connected with great minds. Without Twitter, I would have never got to know what Mr.Gates (@billgates) is doing. It helps me to be connected with some great minds, icons, celebrities and other interesting persons on this world.

Use Twitter and get benefited. Happy twittering!!

Related Post: Make phone calls from Twitter, Send / Receive tweets as SMS.

-- Varun