Okay, we’ll give this another shot. I started on twitter in 2007, but dropped it as a time sink that didn’t have a high enough signal to noise ratio. I also figured that anyone who cared much about what I said was my friend on Facebook and would see notes there. So for the last several months, my twitter use was pretty much limited to following @kim_gandy and @cnnbrk on my phone (though it’s sometimes surprising to see what CNN thinks folks need to know RIGHT NOW.)

The Fem2.0 conference brought it back to my attention (though I still think scrolling the #fem2 tweets on the screen behind the panelists was more distracting than valuable, and the twitter based meetings were *really* low on signal to noise). Also that meeting helped put twitter on the AAUW radar, so there’s now an “official” @aauw twitter stream and a few of the staff chime in on their own. I’ve still no evidence that AAUW members in general are into twitter — I expect (as I found in 2007) that the number of AAUW twitterers compares to the number of AAUW Facebook users about the way twitter/facebook has penetrated the general population. That might be down from the 1:100 ratio to more like 1:30 — but with only on the order of 1000 folks on Facebook who identify with AAUW, I’m not convinced there’d be a big payoff for twitter. [But then, I remember crying as I was leaving the “younger members session” in Phoenix in 2007 — the panel said “use text messaging” but my note about twittering the convention was rejected as  inappropriate for the Convention Daily.]

We’ll see if I stick with it (and can control the time sink). Two new tools may help:

• The Firefox add in Shareaholic. Almost a one-click tweet of an interesting link. Let me know if you find those annoying. I still do use del.icio.us for things of lasting value (particularly tag aauwtech).
• Web interface tweetree.com. This is something like twitter.com on steroids —
  • gives additional info on links including showing  the media links as pix or videos,
  • has a box to do a search directly (instead of moving over to search.twitter.com),
  • shows (as best as it can figure) the original message when a friend posts an @reply,
  • supports retweet directly (without copy/paste),
  • and more.

I’m still being circumspect about following other folks – so don’t take it personally, just consider my borderline ADD and twitter @nes49 to get my attention (or, as my twitter profile still says, find me on Facebook).