The Power of Twitter

Would you call me a recent convert to Twitter. I have been tweeting since late 2009. I at first didn’t know what handle to use, I have had a couple of which over time I think I have settled on the_green_egg which is a reference to my daughters name she has given herself. I have written previously in a Blog Post.

I at first was curious about Twitter, it didn’t seem to have a purpose outside my Facebook, but over the time I have been able to network especially with other bloggers, and there always seems to be someone on twitter especially at the late hours I am on it.
Through twitter I have been able to connect with people I would never have been able to connect, as being a recent (5 years now) arrival to Newcastle I have few Novacastrian contacts, my social base I left in Melbourne when we moved here. In a way it is an unobtrusive way of connecting with others in the local community.

One handy use for Twitter I found was very early in the peace I connected by following my local council and they eventually followed me. By them doing this I was able to advise them of an illegal rubbish dump site. Being someone who doesn’t like calling in things, I just used Twitpic by uploading a photo of the offending dump site. I then tagged @lakemac with the location.

Lakemac then responded very promptly by thanking me and gave me a reference number. That was on the Monday I posted the photo and by Friday the mess had been cleaned up. Needless to say I was supremely impressed. Was it the fact that my council was responding so promptly to my notification, to the fact they are connected and “up with the times”.
And to be truthful if it wasn’t for twitter I probably wouldn’t have notified the council, probably I wouldn’t usually make a fuss about something like that. Plus I might think to myself, “Oh someone else will tell them” or perhaps someone else from the council would have already notified them.

It was a legacy from a recent council cleanup where the kerbsides fill up with rubbish.