I love Twitter.
Like everyone else, it took me a period of adjustment to “get it” but once I did, I fell in love with Twitter wholeheartedly. Why? In part because of it’s immediacy. It can also lead you to so many different places; down the rabbit hole, as it were. If you’ve ever spent an evening at home clickling your way through “if you like this artist, you’ll like…” links in iTunes, you’ll know what I mean. But mostly, I love Twitter because of serendipity. In my opinion, it is by far the most serendipitous social network out there. Let me give you an example.
This morning I was scanning through my Twitter list when I came upon this tweet from C.C. Chapman: “One of my favorite views…”. Naturally curious,
I clicked through to see a picture taken from his perspective in the back of a canoe. His son is paddling in front of him, his daughter sits squarely in the centre and his wife is at the front. The canoe floats quietly on a lake covered in lily pads and the scene is very peaceful. As an outdoorsy guy myself, it inspired me to look into canoes at Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC).
Upon landing on their home page, I spied a link to MEC Paddlefest, an annual celebration of canoeing and kayaking. I clicked through to discover that the event will be in Toronto, in our neck of the woods, in two weeks. I called to check the availability for the Canoeing for Parents and Kids program and $11.30 later, we were booked.
I then returned to my Twitter client—Hootsuite—and tweeted: “Inspired by cc_chapman’s photo, I’ve signed up for Canoeing for Parents and Kids as part of MEC’s #paddlefest. Can’t wait!” He responded with: “Awesome! It is a great family activity and SO peaceful. Hope you guys enjoy it.” and then re-tweeted my original post adding “This made my morning.” Indeed, and my morning too.
How has Twitter opened up the world for you?
