twitterI’ve been getting really into twitter.

The media are said to be going a bit too mad over twitter. It is true. Watch this clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - it’s so totally hilarious.

After watching this, I added tweetcongress to my twitter following list and a couple of senators.

hammer2The reason why I like it is because once you start seeing people are following you and you start following the people that you are interested in, it gets addictive! It only got scary once when I got a message to say 10 Downing Street were following me! And I got a bit excited when I found MC Hammer!

From a journalistic point of view I’m finding it really useful. I’m getting information – news articles and other links – and seeing online conversations going on, that I would not be tapped into otherwise. The twitter search box allows you to type in anything you’re interested in looking for – for example I was looking for info on Obama’s inauguration when I was researching our trip to Washington. See what Your Story did for the inauguration here.

Also for breaking news. When the Mumbai attacks happened, this email came round my department from a BBC colleague -

Every few seconds the people of Mumbai are writing their views on Twitter – a doctor pleading for blood, a Muslim who believes the killers were martyrs, an inhabitant of Nariman House, a frightened Indian Muslim — it is all here. They all have emails and they all want to speak to the outside world. You can’t afford not to use it.

I have to agree.

The head of Global News, Richard Sambrook uses twitter a lot and he got a message from Peter Horrocks – who is about to join BBC World Service management – he released the names of two people who had got jobs via twitter by mistake.  So there is room for error!

I went on a BBC course last week called “Capturing Conversations”. It was about looking for things being said online about a subject you are interested in.   They told me about icerocket – which is a different search tool, twist that maps trends and hot words on twitter, and twitterful – you download it and it makes your twitter updates cascade down on your screen. Looks nice.

So, are you converted yet?