Twitter: leah_N_sarah

The twitter-craze going on right now is hard to miss. Although we both are social networking fanatics, we never truly jumped on the twitter bandwagon until now. Since we both have seen that Facebook is an effective internet communication channel, we thought it would be beneficial to explore the tweet world. Our primary assumption was that it was similar to Facebook and that the learning curve would be simple. However, after opening our account we soon discovered its differences.

What We Liked
Overall, the account was pretty straightforward in establishing a profile. The domain name, the design/settings, and the "what's happening" feed were easy to understand. To create a list of followers (which we acquired a total of 33) we found that creativity and active participation was a must. We also found that once we began to update our statuses on a regular basis, the tweets began to unfold in a story-like manner. That is, we created our own style. For every message we found something humorous or unique and included an e-commerce website. We also liked the ability to find others by searching under keywords. Although a little creepy, a handful of our followers found us in this manner (i.e., rock-climbing, health, and gear).

What We Didn't Like
Initially, it was difficult to gain followers. Although we could easily follow others at the click of a mouse, we found that they weren't always reciprocating the action. It was also difficult to find specific people. Twitter prompts you to search through your email account, but if you don't have gmail, aol, or yahoo you cannot use this method. Finding your friends seemed very tricky. In Facebook, it will pull up users that semi-resemble who you are searching for. With twitter, this isn't the case. You had to know their exact user-name and the system is case-sensitive. The best way to find friends is by looking through your existing followers friends list.
Another downside is not knowing who the user is unless you extensively go through their profile. For example, Sarah was following one of her friends but realized later that we had been blocked. Sarah then went onto facebook and addressed the issue, and he was bewildered by the fact. He explained the reason for blocking us: there are some "scandolous" account users on twitter and he thought we were one of them.
We also didn't appreciate the spamming. Lately, we have been receiving a large amount of "direct-messages" with advertising website urls. In clicking one, we were caught up in the mix and our account was "hacked" into. We wound up having to change our password. Also in regard to direct-messaging, twitter doesn't post alerts for new notes. You have to actively check it. Facebook on the other hand, gives you alerts via email.

Conclusion
Although businesses/everyday-Joe's are currently obsessed with the little birdie communication tool, we just aren't. Throughout the project, we constantly made comparisons to Facebook. Facebook wins hands-down in our book. It unlikely that we will keep our account, let alone set up individual accounts. It was fun to collaborate together, but the cons far outweighed the benefits. And what the heck is up with the @ sign?! Just plain silliness.