Hi Members:
Writing to notify you all that you can now follow member notifications, forum updates and other insider info to Beemaster Forum on Twitter!
www.twitter.com/beemasterforum (http://www.twitter.com/beemasterforum)
I'm interested in seeing how well this will be followed. I'm looking forward to adding you to my Twitter feed if you'd like to get on my follow list.
Hope this becomes an insightful way to communicate without the need to fill the forum with posts that quickly get outdated: like "I'm online live at BlogTV" etc.. On the forum, that post has no meaning once I'm off line, but with Twitter, it is easier to follow with time-stamping and updates.
Enjoy and see you in Twitter :)
Beemaster
The ONLY "social network" you would belong at? I would have never have guessed you would have got on twitter. I know of your dislike for the facebook.
The dislike for Facebook is true - I hear of it ruining the lives of people every day. The benefits (to me) out way the risk. We do have the Beemaster "Fan Site" which has well over 120 members, I have looked at it and really don't see the charm. There isn't anything there I couldn't do somewhat similar here in the forum.
My accepability of Twitter is a bit complicated and purely an experimentation to see if members wish to be notified "on the fly" more so than posting directly into the forum when siimple statements can be shared to the members through smart phones easily on Twitter, etc.. I don't know how it will work or how much interest there will be, thus the experimental part of Twitter.
As most people have either read or noticed, we have been invaded (probably BREACHED is a better word) by spambots in the forum - they are though VERY harmless, only creating an account and a web address in the signature line of their profile, and what makes them harmless - they never post. The only place you would see these members is in the membership listing when sort by date. That is the kind of info that I hope to announce on Twitter as well.
Robo, our exellent Technical Admin has added MANY traps and monitoring gizmos to reduce and track these spambots, thus reducing their numbers greatly. We list the many Social Network icons on the webpages for those who use such things, I just think it better to STICK WITH ONE rather than feeding data to many.: why seach for your keys throughout the house when you know you lost them in the living room theory.
The main reason for Twitter is the EASE of getting in and out - it isn't a service that requires as much computing technology and time as most the rest - and again, it is an experiment.
I tend not to be the kind of guy who would post "I'm sitting on the patio" as is shown in a Facebook related TV ad, where a father is haunting his son with the wall posting stuff. I hope to keep the info forum related, but surely will include personal stuff that I think the membership may find interesting.
So, I think of facebook as the Craigs List of Social Networking (no insult to the millions who use it regularly) I just think it is clutter much of the time. I have seen on the news MANY times where depressed and oppressed citizentry has Tweeted their stories to the free world andwas impressed when I saw a food-truck vendoe use Twitter to announce where she would be at any given time so that customers could meet her truck promptly as it arrived - improving on productivity on their end and increasing her business many times fold!
Every closet thoughhas skelitons and I'm sure Twitter does too, I just would like to offer a simple way for members to have access with mobile devices, etc., to get current updates to forum events and this seems to be a simple and effective way for those connected.
Don't mind me, just thinking aloud, but I think my reasoning is fairly sound.
I just added a feature on Twitter, I call it "The Post of the Day" and for you users, I hope it is a handy way to keep up with an eclectic sampling of what is happening in the forum.
I'm using a free service associate with Twitter called www.tinyurl.com (http://www.tinyurl.com) which takes long winded links to posts and shortens it trendously, allowing you to add a message and the link all within 140 characters.
I think The Post of The Day will be a handy and entertaining feature on the Twitter Channel. Suggested links will be posted too if members submit them to me via PMs or directly on Twitter.
To show the Tinyurl's power, here is the link to our Forum Bi-Laws:
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,19652.0.html (http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,19652.0.html) and here it is with Tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/2atx4uz (http://tinyurl.com/2atx4uz) - as you can see it's nearly as short as typing:
http://www.beemaster.com (http://www.beemaster.com) it saves GREATLY on space and as you know SOME sites have links that are seemingly miles long - this service makes it possible to tweet those ridiculously long links to anyone.
I'm up to 14 posts on Twitter now and although growth of the followers is slow, I expect that it will do well in time. Even if not, to those using it, I believe it is a nice feature to have.