- Image via CrunchBase
Even if i’m not doing something, i’ll be thinking about doing something. It is literally impossible for me to switch off and focus on nothing. I just can’t do it. I do spend a lot of time doing nothing though. Whether it’s free classes or laziness, i can waste time just as much as anyone 🙂
But i’ve managed to turn around that wasted time in to productive time over the last couple of months. I’ll use twitter & tweepsearch to search for interesting / useful contacts and follow them.
Now that i’m following over 1600 people, i can sit back and watch what they’re saying. If any interesting links or tips pop up, i’ll favorite that tweet and look at it in more detail at a later date. Here’s an example of a few cool links and articles that have come my way in the last 3 minutes (literally the last 3 minutes at the time of writing);
- http://friendorfollow.com/
- http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/rssstimulus
- http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/02/the-workstations-of-popular-websites/
- http://www.twe2.com/
- http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/30-beautifully-textured-web-designs/
- http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/to-do-list-gang-exposed/
By adding more people, i’m also spreading my own profile around twitter, so people then follow me back. That means more people read what i have to say, which means that i can get more answers answers and get them quicker than if i just had a few contacts.
That’s just two main advantages to following people on twitter. I do that in what i call ‘wasted’ time – time i’d otherwise spend just browsing aimlessly or listening to music, playing games etc…
Due to the fact i’ve hand picked who i follow, i get quality information on a constant basis. Links like the ones above – that stuff is gold dust to me and i get it every day. Dozens and dozens of quality webmaster links and downloads. I usually bookmark or favourite them on twitter and then whenever i’ve got more time to waste, i’ll look at those sites and start downloading or studying the stuff i want.
Twitter is however taking a bashing by journalists i feel. There has been a lot of talk about twitter in the press recently (certainly in Ireland & the UK anyway). A lot of it is insulting to twitter users like myself… they’re making twitter out to be a place where people let the world know about what they’re eating for dinner or what they’re watching on TV.
Yeah that happens… but if you look beyond the celebrities, spammers and sheep, you’ll find a world of extremely useful information and services available on twitter – i know i have.
Write twitter off at your peril – the reality is it’s a major threat now for journalists and the media in general – i can get information faster than they can, for free, so can you! That makes their jobs harder and puts them at risk. What they write about tomorrow is old news… i’ve already heard about it today.
Unlike reading a newspaper in my free time, i’m reading targetted information which i’ve chose to read. As a result, a lot of it is interesting and valuable which is how i’m turning my wasted time in to productive time 😈