Twittering about - part 2

Here's the continuation of the report on my recent survey on about Twitter uses. I asked people what their top three reasons were for using Twitter. Yesterday's post carried some of the responses, and here are the rest. If you use Twitter yourself you may follow some of these notorious microbloggers....

@cristinacost (Cristina Costa, England) uses Twitter because she gets useful links and connections, meets great people and indulges in a 'bit of chatter.' She says it is also important to have fun when using Twitter. @vaughany (Paul Vaughan, England) says it's all about the networking, conversation and distraction. @Pettsvaldo (Kristian Petterson, England) uses Twitter to get help from his peers, for amusement and to gain access to 'the most contemporaneous news one can get'. @karynromeis (Karyn Romeis, England) locks into a network of likeminded individuals, gets links to interesting things she might otherwise have missed and uses Twitter to make up for the loss of office chatter since she 'went solo'. @andypiper (Andy Piper, England) likes keeping up with news, enjoys the ambient intimacy and says that Twitter gives him awareness of his friends, and helps him extend his network.

Downunder, @suewaters (Sue Waters, Australia) says she enjoys near instantaneous connections with extremely diverse groups of people who willingly help and share, and likes the ability of Twitter to provide quick help and assistance to others and similarly receive, increased ability to achieve deeper personal connection to people in your PLN compared to normal blogging. @ljloeffler (Louis Loeffler, USA) says it is easy to discover new Web 2.0 ideas, network and meet, improve and learn. And there's more...

@SarahStewart (Sarah Stewart, New Zealand) says access to broad range of info and people is important as is access to synchronous and serendipitous events. She says that Twitter gives her more of a personal insight into the people she follow through blogs. @ctscho (Carmen Tschofen, USA) says she appreciates Twitter's constant flow of excellent links, a sense of the exchange of dynamics among like thinkers and thinks that it is an excellent place for interaction for introverts. @Quinnovator (Clark Quinn, USA) likes to track what is going on, obtains responses to questions and issues he poses and finds Twitter useful to interact with his colleagues.

@MtnLaurel (Laura Little, USA) finds Twitter useful to connect with her colleagues too, discovers local information, and can share her knowledge and experience within a community of interest. Finally, @torresk (Ricardo Torres Compen, Spain) uses Twitter as a pedagogical tool to support his students and promote discussion. He uses it to keep up-to-date and for networking with colleagues.

Bearing in mind that only 22 people responded to the survey, it would be foolish to make generalisations from such a small sample and this is merely a snapshot of current uses. However, I hope that you can appreciate that trends are indicated here, even in such a superficial study. Statistics are calculated on the basis that each respondent had 3 reasons to give and that each reason was placed into categories as follows: Social interaction/maintaining network, Sharing own knowledge, Entertainment and fun, Getting responses to questions, Finding new links and information, Immediacy, and 'Other'. Percentages were calculated from each column based on the sum divided by 22. I didn't perform any inferential statistics due to the small sample, but there is scope for a larger study.

By far the most important reason for using Twitter was to maintain social and professional network of contacts (82%). This was followed closely by the desire to keep up to date with new trends and technologies (72%). 32% used Twitter as a means of entertainment and fun. It's obvious that Twitter is being used to connect and engage, but interestingly, only 2 respondents (9%) used it to 'share their own knowledge'. I suspect more actually do this, but didn't report it (I follow them all and often learn from their twittering). All in some way or another wanted to keep in contact with their colleagues and peers, and wanted contact with those working in the same area of interest, and to maintain their networks. Twitter then, is seen by users as a multi-purpose social networking tool which has possibilities at several levels. No wonder it is growing exponentially, possibly at the expense of other Web 2.0 tools. As always, any comments are welcome. (Image source: Cyndygreen.wordpress.com)