In my experience, social networking applications gain marketshare by being first to innovate and then spreading virally.
I was an early adopter of Facebook but delayed joining Twitter, a microblog that enables me to post instant blog entries via SMS from my Blackberry.
Over the past 60 days, I have seen an incredible rise in Twitter use among my colleagues and have now joined the ranks of folks who "Tweet" their blogs. You'll find me at http://twitter.com/jhalamka
Here's what I do to use Twitter
1. I've added Twitter's SMS address (40404) to my Blackberry and can send a message directly to my Twitter blog from my Blackberry wherever I'm traveling
2. I've linked my Life as a Healthcare CIO blog to Twitter via TwitterFeed . TwitterFeed supports OpenID for authentication, so you do not need yet another password. It automatically checks my blog's Feedburner RSS feed 5 times a day and creates a microblog entry using tinyurl.com to keep the links short.
3. I follow just a few people, but have increasing numbers of folks following me. I try to limit my Twitter posts to just my blog entries and one interesting factoid per day about a meeting or travel. Sometimes Twitter can get overwhelming if you're following several people who post multiple times per day.
As with blogs, Facebook, forums and other aspects of the interactive web, it's a way to stay connected with your friends and colleagues. Is there a business purpose for Twitter? For me, it does connect me to an entirely different audience for my blog. If I can reach my staff and colleagues via the means of communication they find best - IM, email, blogs, microblogs, phone/voicemail, fax, and Plaxo/LinkedIn, then I've met my goal of overcommunicating with all my stakeholders to ensure they understand my strategy, priorities, and important healthcare IT news of the day.
Twitter is another communication tool for me that easy to use, integrated with my existing devices, and a low burden to maintain. Staying in touch with microblogs - that's cool!
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