Why I love Twitter

Tim O'Reilly wrote a great peice: Why I love Twitter.

1. Twitter is simple.
2. Twitter works like people do
3. Twitter cooperates well with others
4. Twitter transcends the web
5. Twitter is user-extensible
6. Twitter evolves quickly
   

Now that I have moved from The Firm to the New Company, I have been using Twitter much more. Since I have shifted my career from knowledge management to compliance, I am trying to grow my network of information flows and people in the compliance area. (There are lots of KM people using twitter; Very few compliance people.)

Twitter is great way to get news and information updates. There are mainstream news story publishers. New York Times (@nytimes), Wall Street Journal (@wsj), CNN (@cnnbrk) and BBC(@BBC and @BBCbreaking) all push out news stories through Twitter. On the legal side, the American Bar Association pushed law related news stories through @ABAjournal.  Individual journalists are also using Twitter to push out information. Some CNN anchors are using twitter during their broadcasts (@donlemoncnn). In local news, veteran new England news anchorman R.D. Sahl joined Twitter (@rdsahl) this week and has a new program on NECN.

I make extensive use of the Twitter Search (formerly Summize): search.twitter.com. I run a search on my name to pick up tweets with my handle. I run a search on "compliance" and other key words that interest me. That picks up both people and stories around the topic.

The one concern I have with Twitter is how it will survive. As far as I can tell Twitter has no revenue. There are no subscription fees and no advertising. Something will have to change for Twitter to survive.

If you are looking for a great list of people in the legal field using twitter go to JD Scoop's list of 145 Lawyers and Legal Professionals) to Follow on Twitter. The list has grown to over 500 Twitterers.

Do you use Twitter? Feel free to follow me @dougcornelius.

If not, why not?