Category Archives: twitter

random musings, twitter

Timed out discoveries

I am writing this blog post in Word, to later be copy/pasted into MW because our internet is down.

I’ve made a couple discoveries in these hours of internet-less-ness.

First, I rely heavily on Twitter to find out what is up.

I feel this is the beauty of Twitter. This is why I tell people that “Twitter is the awesome.” When something happens, I can usually find out information about whatever it is with a quick Twitter search.

For example, a week or so ago, the Nashville City Council were going to be voting about the fate of the Nashville Fairgrounds. My husband and I went out for the evening, and someone commented that they wondered what had happened with the vote. In less than 5 minutes, I found a reporter Twittering from the meeting, and I could give a play-by-play of the meeting from miles away. As I said, Twitter is the awesome.

Tonight, however, as the internet went down, I went in search of some sort of status update about my parent’s internet provider (using my handy smartphone). I discovered that their provider did not have a Twitter account. They didn’t even have a status blog to keep customers updated about any outages. A major business FAIL in my book.

Meanwhile, my blog went down at the same time. However, my host not only has a Twitter account, they also have a blog on which they post updates explaining what happened and when users could possibly expect their sites to be back up. WIN.

Anyone who thinks Twitter is all about posts like, “I am going to the bathroom now” need to give it a second look.

With that said, second, I rely a little too much on the internet.

No internet for the evening? No big deal! I have PLENTY of other projects to work on that don’t require internet.

Or wait. Those image files I need? I never downloaded them out of email to be able to build that banner for a friend.  I’ll play with my new camera! Maybe I can find some tutorials to follow on-l… oh wait. Can’t do that either.  At least I have Word to write my blog posts in to post later! Right?

I’ll be glad to have internet back. I’m building my career with the internet and no internet, no work. No work, no income. No income… STRESS!

twitter

I’ve got my hash tags

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Hash tags — Short messages on services such as Twitter may be tagged by including one or more hash tags: words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#)… such as #beer… Then, a person can search for the term #beer and this tagged word will appear in the search engine results. (From Wikipedia)

That’s a pretty lame definition, but it works. The most general point of hash tags is still lost on me, considering that you can search for anything with or without the pound sign hash symbol.

Granted, if you get a little more technical and picky, they have their purpose. For example, in cases such as a TV show or a sporting event, the hash tag is indeed useful to group posts into one big discussion.

The first time I used a hash tag was to dish about the CMA Awards. It opened up my posts to other viewers, and in no time my following/follower count tripled with like-minded people. I had to admit, the hash tags rocked in that case. I’ve used it seriously in cases such as discussing things relating to Texas A&M (#tamu or #gigem) and then of course the Nashville flood last month. So, haven’t I seen the point behind the hash tag? Yes. Is it handy in some cases? Yes.

In general twittering, though, if I use a hash tag, its for my own amusement. Hence why I say, the general point of a hash tag is lost on me, and I tend to poke more fun at it than use it properly. For example, #imjustsayin or #ihavenopoint or #stoplookingatmelikethat. I have plenty of people on Twitter who treat hash tags the same.

One of my favorite ones to use is #marriedbutnotdead if I’m going to make a comment about some guy other than my husband looking good.  I’ve also recently started using #musicianswidow when I post something relating to life married to a music man. So,  again, I suppose even in my good fun, I have found a use for them.

I’ve created one that I wish I could get more people to use: #creativeexercise — when you do something more physical than normal, everyday life, but its not what a trainer would necessarily call “exercise”. I’ve used it when I went out to help mow the grass, or last week when I hand washed our truck. Both things out of the ordinary for me, and also things that are more physically challenging than sitting in front of the computer typing!

So here’s my question… does anyone else have their own favorite hash tag? How important and useful are they to you?