Remember the scene in “When Harry Met Sally” when Harry and Sally are in their apartments talking on the phone and watching Casablanca and commenting on the actors? You can probably relate to that scene. I know that I’ve watched something on the television while talking on the phone with someone else who’s watching the same thing.
This is a great analogy for Twitter. So many people are still confused about what Twitter is and why it’s interesting. One of the reasons it’s so interesting is because we can now communicate in real-time with people all over the globe on any of an endless number of topics.
During the Super Bowl, World Series or Golden Globes it’s staggering to watch the volume of tweets (the 140 character messages) that are being sent all over the world. People are commenting and having a great time discussing things. Imagine if you could have a bar on the side of your television screen with people’s comments being posted. Actually, this already exists and it’s coming to a TV near you.
There are tools to track this and one of the easiest ways to do this is with the hashtag which means just putting a “#” in front of a word and creating something like #goldenglobes. By searching on Twitter you can see everyone else who puts this in a tweet. Talk about drinking from a fire hydrant.
So for those folks who are still wondering why anyone would want to be on Twitter, the answer is communication. Lots of conversation with lots of people on whatever matters to you. You can talk with one person or the world. And that opens up all kinds of valuable collaboration opportunities. Answer the phone…it’s for you.