Twitter as Aggregator

by reblog

I must confess that I have very limited experience using tools for aggregation on the internet. I never really felt that I needed such a tool; aggregators just didn’t address a need I felt I had. Part of what I enjoyed about using the internet was the experience of browsing, and I felt that I already did a good job of keeping up with everything that was of interest to me. My theory on the matter could be summarized using the old adage, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

This was before I had used Twitter obsessively extensively. My fascination with Twitter began about a year ago, when I stepped into a job with an existing Twitter account. When I began work, we were already following around 1,500 people. It was impossible to keep up with everything, of course, but when I had free time at work I thoroughly enjoyed browsing our Twitted feed. News stories, quotes, pictures, and random thoughts from an interesting and diverse group of people, all delivered right to my (metaphorical internet) doorstep!

Inevitably, there were a few accounts I enjoyed more than others, but of course I couldn’t go around unfollowing people indiscriminately (I figured I could keep up with a maximum of about 100 ‘Twits’ at a time). This is really why I decided to create a personal Twitter account. For one, I wanted to curate my own list of people to follow, and two, I wanted to have this list already in place when I ultimately leave my job. So I selected my absolute favourite news sources, entertainment sources, bloggers, etc., followed them on my newly created personal Twitter, and voilà! My very own, personally curated Twitter feed. And it wasn’t until we began Module V (Aggregation) of my social media class that I began to understand this practice for what it really is: aggregation.