I came across two blog posts today by @eriwen about why Twitter is a useful Social Networking tool for programmers:
Starting Off With Twitter
When I first heard about Twitter, I thought – that sounds stupid, who cares about what I am doing?
I am relatively new to Twitter and after using it for about a year, am just now starting to appreciate its value.
Initially, my tweets looked like Facebook status updates:
Going to the airport
Going to the beach
Out to lunch
Unless you’re my mother, you could probably care less about what I do with my free time.
Putting Twitter Into Perspective
Imagine if you were networking at a real (in person) social event like a programming user group meeting, wouldn’t you be more interested in programming discussions rather than discussions about my personal life? So why should Twitter be any different?
As a programmer, I am interested in hearing about programming methodology, news articles and other interesting topics surrounding technology.
If you were to find someone with similar interests, you are more likely to start a dialog and establish a true networking connection.
Finding Similar Interests
The biggest challenge that I’ve faced with using Twitter, is finding worthwhile people follow. You could follow a programmer who is somewhat famous like:
- Steve Wozniak (@stevewoz)
- Joel Spolsky (@spolsky)
- Jeff Atwood (@codinghorror)
But, unless you are about as famous as them, your tweets will probably be one-sided.
So where can you find programmers who share a similar social status as you?
JustTweetIt
JustTweetIt is a Twitter directory where you can find other users who share similar interests. You can browse different Twitter profiles within each category or you can add your own to as many different categories as you like.
wefollow
Wefollow is another Twitter directory, where you can search based on different tags. Wefollow allows you to also add your own Twitter user based on an series of tags that you specify.
Blogs
More and more programmers with blogs are sharing their Twitter usernames on their blogs. I welcome you to connect with me, if you find me interesting:
@dhirschl.
Where do you find people to follow?
One Comment
FWIW, a lot of my twitter contacts have come from (Java) User Groups and conferences. Good to keep the conversation going with the people you see rarely but can share good ideas with