I'd definitely agree with you that it's a brilliant tool for gathering timely information and keeping an eye on breaking news.
However, the angle that I was going for in the survey (which may need to be clearer!) is trying to find out what people are sharing on Twitter - the more 'active' communication and information sharing rather than just receiving it.
I'll definitely be discussing it elsewhere in the project! Ideally I'd like to do a much grander examination of Twitter and really probe deeply into how it's being used by the scientific community (research, comms, policy etc etc) - a bit of 'digital anthropology' if you will... But due to the limitations of an MSc-scale project, it's more of a snapshot of the current state of science on Twitter: here and now.
Thanks to all for your comments!
Toby
-----Original Message-----
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hilary Sutcliffe
Sent: 02 September 2010 12:44
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Science and Twitter
Hi, I have filled in the questionnaire Jonathan, but it felt a bit like you have missed one of the main points about twitter, which is not the chit chat aspect, but the info exchange angle. I don't chat to many of the people I follow, but want to know what they say, and follow government ministers, departments etc to get timely information on their reports etc. Your questionnaire doesn't seem to cover that particularly well.
Hil
Hilary Sutcliffe
Director
MATTER
7 Adam Street
London WC2H 6AA
Tel: +44 (0)207 520 9086
Mob: 07799 625064
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hilarysutcliffe
Email: [log in to unmask]
Blog: http://www.matterforall.org/blog/
Website www.matterforall.org
Take a look at Andrew Maynard's review of Nano&me on http://2020science.org/2009/09/28/so-you
're-curious-about-nanotechnology.../
On 2 Sep 2010, at 10:20, Jonathan Sanderson wrote:
On 1 Sep 2010, at 22:20, Oana Sandu wrote:
> Very interesting topic! I would most certainly fill out the
> questionnaire and maybe we can talk more about this on private e-
> mail, although it may also be interesting to hear the opinions of
> others on the list.
Interesting indeed.
I'd be keen to know if there's a correlation between peoples' Twitter reach and the (perceived?) value of time spent. Personally, I'm a busy twitterer and value the service highly - while there's a considerable 'echo chamber' worry, there's also plenty of scicomms chat going on, and I seem to follow/be followed by enough helpful and witty people to make the time investment palatable. At what point does it start to become worthwhile? Is that a plausible goal, or are we all chasing a popularity phantom?
For SciCast, while we do have an account and post key news, I've never managed to justify the time needed to engage properly - our primary audiences aren't yet big Twitter users. That's going to vary from project to project, of course; I'm A Scientist being a classic example of a project that identified, targeted, and successfully marketed to a key audience via Twitter.
Keep us posted, Toby!
--
Jonathan Sanderson
Director, StoryCog Ltd.
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