Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

We use twitter at work - I work in a disaster operations centre - and its a very useful tool for picking up on breaking news stories. Earthquakes and storms are often first picked up by a mix of official bodies and personal tweets, so we can get an idea of how an event is unfolding on the ground as opposed to the official recording on Magnitude Whatever. Its also very useful for terrorist events, air crashes, and other sudden man-made disasters - we've been alerted to major bombings in Bali and India via tweets from people on the ground at the time, for instance, long before anything offical has emerged. Obviously there needs to be some care taken to verify reports before acting on them, but as an initial alerting tool, twitter is now invaluable.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

I watched Birdman yesterday (quite an interesting film, a little dragging in places, but worth a watch) and there were comments about someone not being "relevant" as they didn't have a Twitter account or Facebook page. They are invisible. This was about an ex action star, so a celebrity, rather than an everyday person, however I think some might think the same about themselves, that without these things, and the other items mentioned in the thread they are invisible, or missing out of something.

Twitter is handy for getting certain types of news, as it can be far quicker for someone to tweet something, than to get it on some blog / newsfeed / whatever. Support like stuff "hey, our service is down" is a good example. Could be corporate policy has a more stringent line on how / who posts things to the company blog / Facebook page, but twitter perhaps not to stringent as to who / when.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Still a bit mystified by this. Pollyanna's post above shows how that would be useful in a work situation. But for anybody else, what are they doing, monitoring Twitter in the event something somewhere in the world breaks and they can read it on Twitter five minutes before it finds its way onto news sites?

It's a bit like listening to a police scanner isn't it?

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

I had a Twitter account in 2013 and it was oddly compulsive. Something to do with how frequently it updates I suppose. I also was pathetically thrilled to get responses from 'famous' people ( I won't say who, as I'll sound even more ridiculous). I finally realised how much time I was wasting reading arguments between people I didn't even know, so I closed my account. Then I found BE :blink:

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Its not just for emergencies though. People often notify (tweet) about minor stories or events that wouldn't get reported in the main press. It's basically a way of personalising news/rumour/opinion feeds for your own interests.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Oh go on, say who!!

I don't compulsively check my Twitter, but when I want to or when there is an event, it's there.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Regina Transit notifies customers of route changes and delays via twitter, @Regina radar alerts people to street closures, traffic delays, accidents, speed traps etc, CTV, Global, Leader Post, Nahlah Ayed, Susan Ormiston and JoMa Sommarstrom give me the news, attilathestockbroker keeps me in verse and the Dalai Lama sends a little inspirational message occasionally to keep me from going on a rampage. Seinfeld Quotes, Paul Seesequasis and a few friends and relatives round it out; you can follow who you want and tailor what you get to your purpose.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Ah but that's great fun. You can do that here. ;) I do it on the guardian blogs too. :)

For me that's where the local press comes in. If it's worth hearing about somebody will link to it on a blog or forum. There's not enough time in the day to have everything just come to you.

But what if you don't need to know it? Does it come anyway?

If I'm getting the bus I can take a quick look at the website to check for things like that and to see where the bus is on the route. If I'm not, I don't need to know.
Okay, I'm sold. Where do I sign up? :rofl:

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

The bus still comes.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Ha. Clever.
;)

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

:thumbup:

We often pick up smaller events that would otherwise go by without notice as we don't have time to monitor all the possible news sites. Smaller news sites can sometimes have diaster recovery stuff on them that we would mss otherwise, and I must admit I pickup a lot of personal interest stuff that way - I run feeds that pick up news from Bristol and brighton back home, for instance, one cos my family are there and one for friends. I don't have time to read the local papers, but Twitter gives me the important/interesting news.

Ahah! Another Dalai Lama follower ;)

I also used to like the mad Cat Bin lady, but she doesn't crop up nowadays, and Dr. SunWolf - very inspirational at times, that one!

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

I googled twitter + squamish and I did learn something that would otherwise not have been known elsewhere, so I can see some interest in it.

Thee fact I learned was from 4p Feb 5th to 4p Feb 7th we received 205mm of rain, for comparison in the same time frame Whistler only received 79mm of rain.

Apparently that is 8" of rain roughly, good lord no wonder the river was so high.

Here is the tweet:

"Storm totals from Feb 5 to 4pm today: Squamish Airport 205.4mm, Whistler 79.3mm, Pemberton 79.5mm, Callaghan 165.2mm"

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

the latest thing it appears..is "swatting" you find out someones real id and address and phone local 911 and tell them there is a man waving a gun etc....and then 8 swat team members burst in.....give me virus laden mail anyday!!

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Same here, although there has been once or twice when I wished for anonymity.

Re: Internet Forums & Stalking....
 

Common enough in "streaming" circles. Eg some professional gamers (yes they do actually earn a real living from it) have this happen. Some clown thinks it's good to call in a threat from the persons address and then gets to sit and laugh as the police show up. Obviously it's all shown on camera as they come barging in.