Twitter has an image problem

image courtesy of vikavalter.com, (c) 2007 All Rights Reserved.

[reposted from a comment submitted to a Telegraph article, Twittering is for Twits]

Twitter has an image problem.

This is clear from this article, where Bryony [Gordon] voices many of the common misconceptions about the service.

People think it is about *broadcasting* your life's minutiae.

Not true. Twitter is about *listening* to what other people have to say, and, when appropriate, joining in the conversation.

For an online journalist to say she ignores Twitter, is a bit like a political journalist saying she has no time to listen to what the MPs are 'blathering on about' in Parliament.

It's conversation, plain and simple. You can participate, or you can plug your ears and let people talk around you instead of with you.