Tweet Tweet

I've finally joined Twitter - after a long time of wondering what this mysterious e-verb entails, I can finally tweet :-) [though I haven't yet got as far as re-tweeting!].

It is taking a little while to get used to the format, which I haven't found as immediately intuitive as I used to find Facebook [I will comment on Facebook on a future post]. However I do like that it is completely transparent in terms of privacy and user settings [again, I will comment on my opinion of Facebook in this respect in a future post].

Its amazing how immediate the feeling is of having majorly-missed-out by not being on it before - and it also feels like learning a whole new language and protocol - in a similar way to blogging - but maybe I'm taking that too seriously!

I do think that the whole e-publishing process is one that you could philosophise a lot about. What is the difference between how you approach professional or social tweets / facebook / blog / other e-posts? Do these count as publishing? [I think they do given that they're in a public forum, but I don't know if everyone would agree]. What are the implications for publishing in the future - given that its becoming increasingly easier and more immediate, does quality suffer - or are standards just becoming different rather than worse?

anyway blah, blah, waffle, waffle...I'm just enjoying being able to chat [tweet?] with other people online, and think one of the most interesting things about Twitter is that it acts as a  'recommended reference tool' - with the links that people provide to information/resources...

...oh yes, and for the record I've also done Thing 3 by setting up a couple of RSS feeds to Google Reader - and found an app in iGoogle that enables you to feed them straight there, as well as one for Twitter - v useful.
For the 'Extra thing' I set up a Twitter app that enables you to set up a feed from your blog straight to Twitter. But I can't find what its called now - and can't see any record of this on Twitter now I've set it up - any help gratefully received [and if you've read this far down my blog post - thanks!]

Customising blogs

I've just had a go at customising my blog. I added a template when I first created the blog - and chose the 'road with blue sky' option from one of the standard ones that were available. I thought it looked nice having a blue sky and also in a rather cheesy way could represent 'the journey' I'm about to embark on 23 Things :-/ [sorry]

I've also added a widget that allows people to subscribe to the blog with RSS feeds - not sure if that is actually part of Thing 3 for next week so I'll have to wait and see!

I will add a new widget for Twitter once I start Tweeting with Thing 4 next week...and hopefully I'll begin learning what other widgets would be good to add as the weeks go by.

My first blog post

Right, here goes...

I am writing my first blog post feeling terrified of the awesome responsibility that comes with being so easily able to publish your own thoughts (especially after having a glass of wine-just to clarify, it's 7.30pm so not in work hours...once again back to that thought of responsibility!)


The only blogging experience I have had before is writing blog posts on my department updates blog, and reading work related blogs that are either directly related to my job [eg the eresources update blog], or less directly related but still relevant and interesting [eg the Musings about librarianship blog].


'Til now I have felt no compulsion to write my own blog as I'm not convinced of my ability to think of thoughts that are worth publishing on a regular basis! However I can see that I may find it a useful tool to create links to resources that others may not be aware of [as I've tried to do above] and it could also be a way of clarifying my own ideas - in a similar way to how essay and dissertation writing used to in the dim and distant days when I was a student...  But what may be more tricky will be making it interesting for other people to read - so I will not be offended if you don't choose to read further!


I'm looking forward to doing the 23 Things as although I have had some experience of a few of them, I have had little or no experience of the rest. It will be good to have a forum in which I can learn and practice these things alongside others, and hopefully make them relevant to my daily work and/or home life. Have done Thing 1 now [created my iGoogle page]


Hopefully I'll now manage to do Thing 2 by previewing and publishing this post - and by not forgetting its URL which I somehow managed to do before...so I now also have a 'blank blog' floating all alone somewhere in cyberspace...