A few days ago, we joined the big bandwagon known as Twitter. We wanted a better way for our readers to stay updated and to contact us on the fly if they wish. Sending out email alerts is just too cumbersome and time-consuming. We think we’ve found the perfect solution. Twitter is easy and fun to use. So useful, in fact, that it could well change the way maritime companies and individuals communicate and do business. One practical application: seafarer recruitment.
For those not familiar with Twitter, here’s a brief summary from Wikipedia:
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., that enables its users to send and read other users’ messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers. As of late 2009, users can follow lists of authors instead of following individual authors. All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as, for smartphones), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries. While the service is free, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.
Twitter is estimated to have more than 100 million users worldwide compared with more than 500 million for Facebook. We have no idea just how many maritime folks use Twitter. We do know that Maersk Line, the world’s largest container ship operator, and Maersk Tankers are tweeting. So are the ITF, ITF Secretary General David Cockroft, the Maritime Union of Australia, the US Coast Guard and global port operator DP World. There really ought to be more maritime tweeters. Fax machines are passé. Email might soon be, too, one of these days. ~Barista Uno
To follow the Marine Café Blog on Twitter, click here.
