Living in the future: Part 1:Twitter & Flickr

I've caught a friend saying the phrase "I like living in the future" a few times recently, mostly times when we're using some kind of new technology to make our lives easier. I was thinking a bit about that today, trying to decide if I really do like "living in the future" or not. In an attempt to write something coherent (unlike the randomness that has been my blog lately), I thought I'd make a few posts about the technology I use and try to come to some kind of conclusion about the costs or benefits.

Twitter
I started twittering July 9th and have only posted 126 updates since then. Compared to many people I know, that's nothing. But, I've found myself looking at twitter about 2x/day for the last month.
What I like about twitter:

• Easy mental break from work. I think it's healthy to take breaks at work, every few hours, to unclutter my brain and get ready for the next project. Checking twitter updates twice a day or so can provide that break for me. This is a bit like how many people go to someone else's office, not to talk about work but just to talk, during the day. Except, with me on twitter, it takes very little time!
• It can be a good way to motivate people. I haven't done a lot of this, but I see it going that way more and more. I've posted a few things on twitter lately that were really meant to movitate my colleagues (coworkers or volunteers), and I think it's working. I've posted things like "Really excited for XYZ" and found somebody later who wanted to talk to me about XYZ (which is exactly why I said something about it in the first place!). I've heard other people talk about this too - using twitter to say things like "my customer rocks" (knowing that your customer is among the people who follow you on twitter).
  
• It helps re-connection when having real conversation, since you already know "what did you do today?"
• It has helped me (a little) know what's going on with coworkers so I can help them. I think more of that would be positive.
  

What I don't like about twitter:

• Messages are too short to really be encouraging or give people the whole story.
  
• Some people write more than I can keep up with. I don't want to miss something good, but don't have time to check it all.
  
• Signal to noise ratio can be high. Some people seem to write about the mundane that isn't really worth the time to read. Sorry... I'm just not that interested in what you had for lunch today unless you're going to tell me where (i.e. restaurant review) or why (i.e. motivate me to pack my lunch tomorrow too).
• I often feel like I have to censor myself away from say anything bad (like I can't say "stuck in a boring meeting" or "really long day today and want to kill so-and-so") but that's probably good most of the time! :)
  

Ways I might use this technology more:

• I'd like to think more about using twitter to motivate or spark some kind of action in others. I wouldn't want to do that all the time (since too much is annoying) but I may try to do that a little bit more.
• I wonder if I had an iPhone (or something simliar and a more substantial data plan for my phone) if I wouldn't use it more, also.
  

Flickr
I've been using flickr for almost a year. I've been putting photos up on our website for years, and I still prefer our website for my travelogues - but flickr fits in my world pretty well. I like it a lot better than some previous generations of photo websites.
What I like about flickr:

• Really easily searchable - that's how I found the great pi pie recently. You've got to look at this.
• And, the searches works with Creative Commons Licenses, so I can find things to use (very infrequently) for presentations.
• Can designate photos to only display to friends or family.
  

What I don't like about flickr:

• I wish regular (non-pro) accounts could have more albums. I don't really need to sign up for pro (not enough volume) but a few additional albums to sort into would be nice.
  

Ways I might use this technology more:

• I like some of what Colleen is doing with the 365 photos - not sure I'd keep up with that, exactly, but it might be nice to post more slice-of-life things to my flickr account.

Overall, I can see both of these maintaining a place in my technological world - at least until the next big thing comes along.