Every blog has a first entry… So this is simply a first article to get things started! I would like to give a quick overview of Twitter and especially its interest for designers. I didn’t see any of this kind of article yet, so let’s give a try :)

For a few months, this micro-blogging service (each post is limited to 140 characters) has gained notability and popularity worldwide (24 millions of unique visitors in august)… and has quickly become a place “to be”. Twitter is without a doubt the best way to share and discover what is happening right now.

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/twitter.com/

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/twitter.com/

Hereafter you’ll find some positive feedback from designers about using twitter:

  1. Spreading of news via twitter is extremely fast: short messages format, user-friendly twitter interface, real-time updates of information enables the information to spread faster than any other media (newspapers / traditional blogs / etc.).
  2. In a way, Twitter is an online community of people and we can easily find a whole community of designers, follow and discover people and trends, make new contacts.
  3. We can easily access last creations, last trends or last typefaces without browsing during hours plenty of websites…
  4. Twitter may be a way to make a name for oneself and build your brand (only if you have enough “followers”). This helps providing information about last works to potential clients.
  5. Via RT: ReTwitt (message forwarding), you can receive some freelance requests and be quickly hired to do some design task!

Negative feedback:

  1. Twitter service may be very time-consuming.
  2. Sometimes messages interest are useless.

twitter_mosaic

If you’re looking to connect with other web designers on twitter, here are some interesting profiles:

So what’s your advice on Twitter? Let me know! Please feel free to say hello on Twitter: @juxyfr or leave a comment.