I've been playing with Twitter, and I'm really impressed. It looks like it could be a great way of keeping a public cruising log, and tremendously useful for canal boaters as a way to stay in touch with each other.
Twitter is, in essence, a mini-blog, where you can send the posts by SMS (text message) from your mobile, or typing it directly into the website if you are online. Then you can also subscribe to the posts of Twitter members who've you've elected to be 'friends', and your posts and those of your 'friends' all appear together on your own account.
So far, so hmmm. But the nice bit is that you can also receive all your friends' posts by txtmsg, free, on your mobile. So, every time one of your friends writes something, you'll all get the msg (prefixed by the name of the user). The only cost is when you sent the text from your mobile (which is whatever your standard charge is, or included in your monthly allowance).
This could be very useful for boaters. For example, if a circle of boaters wanted to stay in touch with where everyone else is, you could circulate your movements to everyone for the cost of a txt, and everyone else would know where you said you were and when you were near.
Even better, a coal/diesel boat could let its potential customers know where it was and when it was coming, so that you'd know if it was worth waiting for them or if you needed to nip down to a (more expensive) marina to refill. Alton is the only blogging 'bunkering' boat, and it's difficult to do an update of a blog (or read one) while on the cut. A service like Twitter would be much easier. You wouldn't even need your own weblink - you just use one now and then to keep it updated.
Feel free to add grannybuttons as a 'friend' to try it out.
The main drawback is probably the temptation of signing up for too many 'friends' and having dozens more incoming texts a day. But that'll be your own self-discipline at work, and you'd just have to 'unfriend' a few people. I can see 'unfriend' becoming a regular process, like winnowing out your bookmarks or your feeds.
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