Tweeters, tweeters everywhere, but they lack direction
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
The problem with Twitter in Ireland is that there are too many tweets and tweeters. What’s needed is a Twitter directory. Northern Ireland already has one… www.TweetNI.com .
It’s a simple, clear and effective site built by Lee Munroe (@leemunroe), which allows people to register, and be found.
Just today www.twitIreland . com has been launched. Again built by Lee Munroe and with my own support – it offers tweeters in the Republic a similar service.
Twitter has recently been talking about using the IP (Internet address) of each computer to identify exactly where each tweet and tweeter originates, but it’s not clear how extensive the information about each tweeter may be. It is also not known how elective any database might be. Some tweeters like to follow a small number of people and permit only a few people to follow them. Overt identification of location may compromise this freedom.But location information is important, and twitter’s solution should be a simple automated response to a clear social need – giving context to the vast global clouds of tweets and tweeters that have emerged.
The most popular locations people use are Belfast, then a general Northern Ireland, then Ireland, Bangor, Belfast UK, Derry and, surprisingly, Dublin. Many Northern Irish Twitterers, mostly self-promoting businesses people, use ‘twellow’. This is an international Twitter directory with 174 members describing themselves as being from Northern Ireland and 1063 from ‘Ireland’. Top Twitters in this directory include:
* RoboSteel (amazing sci fi sculptures and movie memorabilia) with 54,142 followers
* JoeScanlon (sponsored quiz site) with 53,293 followers
* Sotiris1 (predicting online financial futures by looking at your website) with 31,469 followers