My daughter said I should get on to Twitter (or Facebook, or blah blah blah). I'm not struck on social networking sites, and I have enough Messenger programs to slow down a super computer, but I thought it might be an idea for adding news updates to Talisman Island more regularly.

It seems you can put a widget on your site with the latest updates and I was wondering if people would even be interested. There is a lot more goes on in the background of the site (well, maybe not a lot more) than gets posted in a new update. Things need sorting out, images sourced or created, blah blah blah. I wouldn't have it on the front page I think, probably somewhere through a link.

In light of my trip to GenCon Indy this year, I thought I could do some updates from there too. It's unlikely that I will add anyone to "Follow", but people would be able to add my details to get updates, should they wish...

So, what do you think? Should I run away screaming now or go with it?

There are ways to shunt RSS news into twitter, and the other way, without having to post twice; I just set it up for NobleDead.com and BarbHendee.com so our news goes into one NobleDead.com twitter. If you're not going to do either of these convenience options, then perhaps its not worth your time.

There are people who twitter news items. Mostly its for people wanting to chit-chat with others on the fly, which is great for keeping in touch if that's your best way of doing so. That's all I've seen it good for. And as a comparison, I always stop by TI.com in my morning browse to see what's up. I never check twitter for anything.

ASIDE: I may be heading towards old curmugeon status... but twitter seems rather lame overall. I'm not really in web logs that much, but the best of them are vastly superior in content than the best of the tweets. I'm sick of tweets burning up news programs on the air in place of legitimate news. Most of it is opinions with no support or authoritative knowledge for a legitimate viewpoint on a topic. Hopefully that fad in the media wears out soon and they start being more disciminant with what they waste air time... in those brief spans between the commercials blitzs.

The "fad" thing is what turns me off these social networking sites/apps and even blogging to some extent, though I suppose Talisman Island can probably be seen as a glorified blog from an obsessional fan!

I think what made me think twice about Twitter was the ability to just post something short and simple that would not make a full "news" piece for the site, but may be of interest to people who visit the site each day rather than trusting to RSS feeds and the like. For instance, I could be preparing something that is not a "scoop" as such, but might take a couple of weeks in which nothing particular is happening wih the site, but could comment about what's happening working towards it. It would work not only to pique interest, but to keep people informed also.

Another benefit is that I can do it from my phone. I don't fancy using the hassle of updating the site from Indy, but I can use the feed to post anything of note until I get back and can update properly. Even something as simple as reporting a bit of news seen in an email or shop or whatever without having to wait until I get home and launch various apps to post the news. But then, the grumpy old man in me (getting a larger part of me each day) thinks "What's so important that it can't wait and few hours/days?" Life used to be so much simpler and I can remember when all this was fields....

I don't know... I suppose it is something I could do anyway and see if it is worth it after a while. The problem with putting the widget on the site would be that you wouldn't have to "follow" the posts using the network. This means that you wouldn't be able to measure success just by the amount of "official followers".

Well, the phone issue is convenient certainly (now I must confess I hate cell phones... I was chained to one as a consultant, 24/7/365, for seven years). I guess give it try, and if you like it, stick with it. If you end up feeling even indifferent about, that should mean skip it... considering you've already stated it's not that important.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained... and certainly nothing lost in the short run. But as stated above in an edit, I stop by TI during my morning browses to check for any big news... but I'm never personally on Twitter.

Have you thought about a new approach to the news section? Maybe synopsis or encapsulization with link to full post... then setting an actually content pull in so your tweets become full posts? Much better than a plugin causing cross domain pull and bandwidth glut like too many sites.

I use Twitter (@erima). I think it’s terrific. I have another account for my illustration and design studio (@gravel). I also try to make use of hashtags (which are basically categories). For example tonight I played my first game of Cthulhu LCG and tagged it #CthulhuLCG… It’s fun to see what else is going on with people interested in that (I’m the only one with that one so far, but there are a number of #Cthulhu tweets). There’s a great group of people who play Go (#weiqi, the chinese name for it, as #go is used for many things) that I discovered this way.

Mostly I think it’s a good way to keep up with friends, eliminating the "so what did you do last week?" kinds of questions.

I'm hoping for the whole Twitter thing to pass me by

I still don't really get RSS feeds, so in the light of Twitter, you could consider me an caveman presented with a motorcar

Hmm... I may keep it up for when I go to Gencon and put the feed on the front page of Talisman Island. We'll see....