In concert with developing a page of Twitter resources, I’ve started (in-work!) identifying message genres (types). Note that some follow traditional genre style (eg, fiction, nonfiction, science fiction, romance) and some are “types of people” (politics, organizations, reporters):
- Personal: the type envisioned when the tool was developed. Examples:
- daynah (followers: 114) is getting ready to bbq! But where is the sun??
- nsolis (followers: 45) Cleaning, packing, finding boxes with my ex’s name on them. Weird.
- UmbralEchoes (followers: 9) Back from Chicago, chillaxin’ at the house. Trying to buy tickets to GenCon events, and failing.
- Personal But With Wider Relevance: Personal messages that move beyond “what am I doing at the moment.” Examples:
- Implications for corporate brand image: davewiner (followers: 8,132) My Comcast service is down again, for the last four hours. On hold with their service people, getting the runaround
- Thought Leader: timeoreilly (followers: 3,588 ) Interview with Inc magazine about threadless.com and the future of manufacturing. Tying in Make, Instructables, Inventables, Chumby
- Educator: hrheingold (followers: 2,333) Thinking about a broader framework for teaching attention literacy
- Micro-blogging: Twitter returns blogging to its roots: the link post. Examples:
- davewiner (followers: 8,132) “the superdelegate tidal wave is about to begin” http://tinyurl.com/68jalw
- scobleizer (followers: 20,208 ) It was a real honor to be part of http://travelinggeeks.com/ in Israel. We’ll be pouring content into that site for weeks from this trip.
- steverubel (followers: 5,511) iTunes remains 400 movie rentals short of what they promised – for February. http://tinyurl.com/5rr6kb
- News Feed: Both bloggers and traditional news organizations are using Twitter as a wire feed. Examples:
- 24_hour_musuem (followers 8 ) Museums Sheffield Announces National Metalwork Award Shortlist http://tinyurl.com/499ucx
- laughingsquid (followers: 8,331) uploading photos from NYC including Burp Castle, Katz’s & Apple Store West 14th St http://twurl.nl/mv7djk
- nytimes (followers: 3,123) Clinton and Obama Escalate Attacks in Pennsylvania http://tinyurl.com/3jorup
- stephtara (followers: 998 ) More on coComment advertising: http://tinyurl.com/5rwv4t
- steverubel (followers: 5,511) Study: A Billion Dollars in Internet Advertising is Wasted http://tinyurl.com/5r64k2
- techmeme (followers: 2,769) Struggling to Evade the E-Mail Tsunami (Randall Stross/New York Times) http://tinyurl.com/5sfygv
- Reply with Link: Public responses that are surrogate link posts
- hrheingold (followers: 2,333) @arikan Social capital is one week (#12) of a semester: http://tinyurl.com/yuyrzg
- scobleizer (followers: 20,208 ) @johnmccrea nice post on improving the Web: http://tinyurl.com/565zn7
- WendyDrexler (followers: 296) @plu Thank you for sharing http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/19/hope/ . I hope that he continues to post if he hears from Michael.
- Politics: Political organizations/people who use Twitter to advance their agenda
- barackobama (political campaign) (followers: 24,375) At Independence National Historical Park (Philly, PA) kicking off the “On Track for Change” tour. For more info: http://PA.BarackObama.com
- downingstreet (elected official) (followers: 1,792) After some private meetings in Boston yesterday the PM has now returned from the US. Read more at http://usvisit.pm.gov.uk
- podblanc (white supremist) (followers: 38 ) Dollar in the gutter thanks to these criminals: http://tinyurl.com/6a9rpj
- Reporters Who Twitter – Twitter can be used to solicit ideas/input for stories
- ReporTwitters Blog – 90+ ReporTwitters members exploring Twitter-Journalists-Reality Style Reporting.
- Group Reporting Guide – From ReporTwitters
- Organizations That Twitter (information, non-political)
So. What do you think?
Kathy –
What a splendid job! I think this moves the discussion ahead quite a bit and really blunts any attempt at one-dimensional definition.
Looking forward to sharing/discussing this more …
Two more variants on personal/professional:
Asking Qs of a professional network: http://twitter.com/wnalyd/statuses/793906227 or http://twitter.com/CUWarrior/statuses/794622989
Organizing groups: don’t have a specific at my fingertips but SXSW was crazy with them.
Thanks, both of you! I can only imagine what SxSW was like. =:-0
Very interesting :)
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