BPL on Twitter

BPL now has a presence on Twitter. Twitter is another Web 2.0 app which basically is a cross between Instant Messaging and Blogging. It is not quite a Instant Messaging service because it offers more than simple messaging but it is not a blogging service either. Twitter is basically a micro-blogging website.

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them either to be viewed by everyone or by certain people in your viewing group. Twitter is the most popular site in the category of micro-blogging websites. The maximum number of characters which can be used with Twitter is 140.

The Twitter website defines “Twitter” as:
“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” So the basic premise of Twitter is to answer the question, “What are you doing?”

Why would BPL want to use Twitter?
The most popular use for it at the moment is to use it as an additional method of advertising events going on in the library system. Sure, we do have Eventkeeper but as we all know a lot of our younger crowd uses Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter so we must send out our information to these sources as well as traditional sources such as the Eventkeeper.

So beginning tomorrow patrons will find a link to Twitter on all our sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo as well as our website. The information that will be on Twitter will need to be updated on a daily basis. We also plan on posting any outages and closings on Twitter as well.

If you have any questions about Twitter you can email me at kbrewis@bham.lib.al.us or call me @ 226-3798. I have collected tons of information about Twitter and would be glad to share it with you. At the end of the post, I have included a short video from YouTube that hopefully will explain a little more about Twitter and its uses.

Twitter in Plain English