Yellow fever

Recently, I have started tweeting. I now have some 175 followers, which is not bad bearing in mind I have only been in the game for about a month and I suppose it is nice that other people want to hear what I am rattling on about. For those of you who are new to Twitter, it is a novel idea whereby you can make comments, but only up to 140 characters long '“ so nobody can get bored by what you are saying. The trick is to be pithy and straight to the point, and I suppose it helps if you can inject a certain amount of wit, pathos or irony. Funnily enough, it is quite difficult to restrict yourself to 140 characters, especially so as lawyers are wordsmiths by trade, and, let's face it, when was the last time we sent a letter or indeed an email to a client with only 140 characters?

So, what is the value of Twitter? Putting it into context, I already had a Facebook page but Facebook seems a little more biased in favour of photographs, social events and people showing you what an excellent time they had at the weekend. That is not to knock Facebook, as it seems to serve quite a useful purpose and I suppose it has taken over from sending postcards, writing letters or even telephoning your relatives.

There is also LinkedIn, which I am also a part of but I am never completely sure what it is all about. It seems to have a flavour of recruitment, headhunting and human resources about it. I expect that many people have found gaining employment easier using the LinkedIn project, but I know that some use it for other reasons; for example, they are on streams relating to matters such as legal aid and practice management. Oddly enough, I find it a little distracting and not a little boring.

Twitter has the advantage of being instant, so when something happens you can log onto Twitter either on your laptop or Blackberry and it will give you instant information about what is going on long before other organisations have reported on a story or a magazine prepared an article. For instance, the instant Twitter feeds

from the Leveson enquiry or the recent Court of Appeal hearing in relation to the closure of the Brent libraries were fascinating. On another level, you can follow a complete football match, which, for an Arsenal fan who cannot afford seats at the game, is second best but better than nothing.

Early days

I suspect Twitter also has some functionality in that people listening to your rants, discourse and opinions become aware of you as a person or indeed as a firm. I don't think I've had any new work as a result of what I have done on Twitter, although it is early days. The problem with social media is that one never knows in what direction it is going. Will Twitter be with us in five years' time? My youngest son wondered whether Twitter would be with us in five months' time. I think we live in a world of extreme flux when it comes to social media, and, at the moment, we are trying out various versions and nobody quite knows which ones will stay the course.

However, Twitter does have advantages. Ranting away the other day when my BT lines went down out of blue, BT tweeted me back offering help when I had been trying to ring them all morning. The power of Twitter is something to be reckoned with. Equally, when I was talking about Lexcel, a consultant tweeted me offering advice. My guess is that Twitter could become a much bigger player in the field of social media than any of us might realise. There is an addictive quality to it. It serves a useful purpose and as a means of communication it is fast, efficient, and, certainly as far as solicitors are concerned, seems to tick most of the boxes. It may be that clients out there may start trawling Twitter in time to come and be mindful of who is saying what and when. It may be that they may make a mental note of that and Twitter could become bigger than Yellow Pages was in the '80s!

But things come and they go. Yellow Pages is now a tiny little book with very few pages in it. That is because nobody uses it. People use Google or other search engines. Will Twitter go on to trump all the other aces? Who knows. People are, however, interested in my daily mentions of Cosmo the dog, who remains a firm favourite not only with my solicitor following but dog lovers around the world!