Monday, April 06, 2009

Loving Twitter on Travel, Websites, Guide books, Media and More

Though I've only been on Twitter.com for about two weeks, I am really loving it for the short, real-time tweets on travel, websites, and more.

Here's a sampling of a few of the twitterposts to illustrate some of the interesting (to me, anyhow) and useful posts.

Just today, tips on how to choose the right avatar/ bio pic for your social networks (see avatar tips). According to that post, my own bio pic can use some fine tuning. And if we think about how we ourselves view others' avatars, the author is right.

Is our bio pic too suggestive? Is it detailed enough? Does it stand out from all the other little bio pics and avatars and give visitors an idea of who we are?

And coincidentally, today a travel agency posted links for best image editing tools

And friend Keram, working hard in LA, posts a link to a great video on how to make a light without electricity. Now this may not be of any interest to many of you at all, but I jumped on it.

While this DIY technique could work for dark garden sheds and garages in many parts of the world, I particularly liked it for Starthrower Foundation working in Haiti, where hydro power sources are iffy.

The no-power light would also interest my friend Bob at Devxchange, working in Ethiopia. This DIY light only works on sunny days, but those little skylights can make a big difference.

To see all those I follow on Twitter, and a sampling of their recent tweets, go to my twitter page (see blog sidebar for link) and click on the little avatars shown under Following.

A heady array, to be sure: Matt Cutts (Google engineer), Google, mashable (tech stuff), Michael BKK (in Bangkok, with real time on the ground updates), travelfish (in Bali, ditto real time updates), Durant on Europe, Teena in Australia, and in SF, artistatlarge/writer/web designer in San Francisco.

Over the past two weeks, I have Followed, then Unfollowed a few more. Some only seemed to post news items that were already widely known, or simply links copied from other media.

One had an avatar that flashed between left and right profile every second. So distracting to have this jumping little image in Tweets and sidebar, I had to turn it off. Maybe I should send him the link above about finding a good avatar.

With today so dark, rainy, snowy and downright miserable, weather-wise, it's a good day to stay indoors and tweet, facebook, blog and do our taxes. I'm not the only one thinking this: Already Twitter is reporting 'overcapacity' and 'try again in a few minutes'.