When is Twitter not Twitter? When it's Facebook? (part of import week)

Fab article I read today:

http://citizenl.net/2009/03/why-twitter-is-not-facebook-and-why-some-people-think-it-is/

I'm going against the grain here as I picked this up from someone I'm following on twitter and retweeting it for the benefit of Facebook friends and colleagues. I don't think that implicit and explicit networks are immiscible, but I do think it is a one way street: I might want to spread some techie/geek/librarian news to a wider audience, but I certainly wouldn't want to direct my twitter followers to 'my mate's had a baby, LOL!!!*'

When I first started using twitter it really was just a feed, a regular update of your activities and ideas. Aptly described as micro-blogging it allowed you to keep track of people, institutions, entities and even (I'm sad to admit I did) fictional characters. Increasingly I feel it is becoming more voyeuristic: I'm checking my TweetDeck to see if anyone has responded to my tweets, I'm responding to their tweets. It's less like following and creating a trail than it used to be.

COPAC has recently decided to follow all of its followers, allowing them -if they have the time- to keep an ear to the ground and find out what its users want. I've enjoyed being able to interact with them in this fast, informal way; I've had great results from it, results which have been invaluable in a work context. The BL and the UL haven't followed this approach and they don't seem to encourage direct messages. At first I thought it staid, but perhaps this is a more purist approach. I want institutions and certain entities (journalists, newspapers, for example) to provide me with information, I want to follow what's going on there; I don't really need them to be my friend.

Twitter more than Facebook is becoming the place where business and pleasure and meeting. I think if we keep in mind what we want from our explicit and implicit networks we can make this a useful mix of networks rather than a car crash.

* Yes, typing LOL!! was like dragging my nails down a blackboard.