Here is the gist of my argument. Twitter produces ideas, thoughts and topics as part of a fairly loose distributed discussion amongst those I follow and engage with on Twitter. As a matter of interest, I enjoy the social banter and seeming trivia as well as finding useful ideas, references, information and relevant focused discussions. All the ‘useful’ content is coming to me filtered by a network of people who in some sense I know, relate to, empathise with, value and trust as more rounded and real (rather than virtual) friends and colleagues, all to some extent sharing a similar(ish) world view and hopes and aspirations. This comes over far more strongly in Twitter than through the more formally written, structured and focused blog posts. This is a big plus for Twitter. So the general picture emerging is as follows. Discussion, banter, information exchange etc. in Twitter leads to the gradual emergence of an idea for a blog post. Some topic and a set of ideas and thoughts coalesces. In this respect discussion and comment precedes and shapes the blog post. The post summarises and clarifies (in the eyes of the author at least) thinking on the tweeted topic and, hopefully, feeds back into the ongoing discussion in Twitter. If this is the case, the relationship between Twitter and blogging is one of mutual enhancement with the bonus that your co-tweeters and bloggers are already contributors to the blog post and are more rounded and human to you as a result of the broader social contact made within Twitter. Blog posts become sites for summary and reflection within the stream of tweets and as such, and to some some extent, may contribute to, create eddies, even divert, the stream itself.

Another quick thought. Some one at ALTC2009 said (was it Alan Cann?) that their use of RSS has diminished somewhat since using Twitter. I think this is true for me. My feed reader only tells me what has been posted. My twitter network tells me what is worth reading – the wisdom of a crowd I have selected and am very happy and priviledged to be some part of. And technology, used in ways that its originators did not intend or foresee, has made this possible.

If anyone doubts the value of Twitter and the people it connects, surely the use of Twitter for the #altc2009 conference has given them pause for thought? What a pity the ALT powers that be did not see fit  to project the #altc2009 Twitter stream in the keynote presentations. A lost opportunity. Perhaps next time.

I must say I find the twitter phenomenon fascinating. It is ripe for sociological analysis and I’m sure someone somewhere is already doing it. It exemplifies so many aspects of on-line social networking  – networks within networks, the power the ‘friends of a friend’ connections, the importance of reputation and status, the collective and collaborative evaluation and dissemination of information and resources, and much more. Who would have thought that a stream of short messages (max 14o characters), often about where people are, what they are eating, watching on TV, what mood they are in, what the weather is like where they are, that they are in a traffic jam eating chocolate, and so on could also be such a powerful research tool. And the seemingly trivial nature of many posts is not trivial at all in the context of groups of twitter-ers and the nature of their identities and relationships and the reality of their ‘virtual’ community. I’m getting close to abandoning the notion of’ virtual in these contexts. It just obscures more of the nature of these sorts of communities and their relations than it illuminates. The experience is real, the information is real, the people are real, their activities are real and, dare I say it, the feeling of attachment and even to some extent obligation are real. Or at least as real as in some networks and communities I am involved with off-line.