Readings
Question: How does the idea of ‘Continuous Partial Presence’ work in terms of building a picture about someone from their microblogging?
This article discusses how and why people use the microblogging service Twitter. It categorizes the short messages members post on Twitter into three main types: daily chatter, conversations, information sharing and reporting news.
- Daily chatter: These frequent and informal postings typically explain what the member is doing at that point of time. Even though one short message does not tell much about a person, accumulating them over time can give insight into the member's daily activities.
- Conversations: Users have adopted the use of the '@' symbol followed by a target's username to address a message for a specific member. Understanding what stirs a member to respond can build an idea of what they find humorous, interesting and offensive.
- Information Sharing: Some members share links to web pages they find useful. Through these others may discover hobbies and passions the member may not otherwise discuss with them.
- Reporting news: When members report what is happening in their lives and the World, others can see what is important to them and what issues are affecting them.
One post on Twitter may not provide a deep understanding of a person, but by analyzing their previous and current messages others can learn a lot about someone's past, their changing interests and be informed about major events in their life.