To Tweet or Not to Tweet
The latest Doctor Who Magazine (Issue 430) has a feature with the 40 people every Doctor Who fan should follow on Twitter. The list reads like a who’s who of Who includes the usual suspects - production insiders, writers, news websites, podcasters and super fans. (Since my copy has not yet arrived I’m relying on the Twitter-squee of those included on the list for this knowledge.) In a few short years Twitter has gone from an odd curiosity where people tended to report their choice of breakfast foods to a complex social tool. You can find diverse nuggets of information such as which governments are toppling, who your favorite genre writer is having drinks with or which actor is jaunting off to set. It has become a source of legitimate news and inanity parsed into 140 characters.
As with all social media, there is the downside - while fans have more access than ever to their obsession, it also creates a false sense of intimacy and trust that can turn ugly. Just ask James Moran.
So readers, do you Twitter? Who do you follow? Do you think Twitter is a fan’s best friend or evil incarnate? Let us know! Better yet, drop a tweet using #dwblog
Posted by Deborah on Saturday, January 29 at 4:05 pm
8 Comments...
I have never twitter’d nor do I even know where to start if I wanted to. I have been thinking about it though.
Posted by Doug Grandy on 01/31 at 06:23 PM
Never tweeted either….and it doesn’t interest me. I admit sometimes when I’ve run across tweets on some site or another, I’ve read them if they’re pertinent to what I was looking up.
I think they can be interesting, but rarely a source of useful information (unless the twitterer intends them that way, in which case they get reported elsewhere anyway!)
Posted by Julie on 02/01 at 02:21 PM
Doug - it’s pretty straightforward. Pick a username and sign up at the home page. Add people you want to follow and have at it! If you’re tweeting about something that you want other people to find, give it a hashtag (#) which is searchable. For example when I tweeted about this blog post I ended my tweet with #dwblog. I find the problem isn’t starting, it’s stopping!
Julie - I felt that way for a long time and then one day I found myself checking Twitter before email and realized, for me, it had become a valuable source of information. Or a mindless source of entertainment. It could go either way.
Posted by Deborah Stanish on 02/01 at 02:40 PM
deborah-Thanks for the info. I might give it a go.
Posted by Doug Grandy on 02/01 at 06:18 PM
How to write a Doctor Who tweet in less than 140 characters? It definitely wouldn’t be possible to reveal a whole episode.
I don’t know that I want to follow any of the writers, producers, directors or the stars, fearful that I may get spoiled. I don’t necessary read every spoiler that heads my way regarding the show, but imagine that Steven Moffatt cleverly tweets something show related… oh my god, what does this mean? Actually I could imagine him doing that.
Granted, I read that they’ve recently filmed near where I used to live and I’ve seen photos, but I maintain it reveals nothing about the episode. I don’t even want to know what anyone says about the filming! I’m sure Steven Moffatt wants as few spoilers out there as possible, perhaps Matt, Amy & Arthur aren’t allowed public profiles?
Doctor Who on Twitter would leave me wanting more, I’m sure.
Posted by Rachel on 02/04 at 08:22 PM
Twitter’s useless. I’m not interested in knowing what a person’s doing every minute of the day, and trying to impart actual information in the space given is hopeless. Not meaning to knock any particular group, but I’ve seen some tweets by, shall we say, individuals connected to the marketing and production of the show that have been more frustrating than informative. And I don’t mean “teaser” tweets either.
Plus they’re so easy to misunderstand and misread. I remember a couple years ago when Greg Grunberg of Heroes caused a stir because he posted a joke or something that people thought was an announcement the show had been cancelled (this was at least a year before it was actually popular).
For example, let’s pretend Matt Smith or Karen Gillan put out a tweet that says “Just filmed my final scenes for Doctor Who. So sad.” Now what could that mean? Sad that the season’s over? Sad that they’re leaving the show and we don’t know about that yet? Were the scenes sad?
Twitter is great when you have someone pinned down by terrorists in Mumbai tweeting “still alive, here’s what I see” which is what happened a few years back. Or “The game is cancelled. Let the team know.” But for anything substantive, forget it.
(And don’t even get me started on “celebrity impersonators” and those who decide to post fake death announcements, just for a laugh!).
Posted by Alex on 02/10 at 12:30 AM
^ My Heroes comment above came out scrambled. I meant to write “This was a year before it was cancelled.” Oops!
Posted by Alex on 02/10 at 12:32 AM
finally! Someone else who doesn’t like twitter!
Posted by Nicole on 02/14 at 10:17 PM
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