twitter and linked data....

after figuring out a really clever way to use twitter to drive an application we're hoping to build for axa - and having just read a post from tim o'reilly about how twitter saves him time here - I'm starting to get my head around some of the root causes of its popularity - I've never been an early adopter - I'm only half a geek - I like to see which things appeal to my "normal" side before I dive in usually

I spend 2 hours a day, reading blogs, pulling ideas out of the web and figuring out how brands can use them. for people emersed in the online world - keeping up with the sheer array of people who might be interesting / useful / interested is one of the major challenges - I now get how twitter has helped force the condensation of these conversations to a manageable length

but its the data that we're able to pull from its API which might still make me a real fan. I'm a linked data cheerleader - and to be able to sample such a rich stream of sentiment from across the world so easily I've realised is massively powerful - yeah you can do it from traditional social media platforms - but the simplicity of 140 characters makes it so seductively easy...

so its still billions of lonely people shouting in the dark for me, without the beauty and power of language to instill the ideas it carries with meaning and purpose - but maybe those lonely cries will turn out to be useful after all.