The dislike for Facebook is true - I hear of it ruining the lives of people every day. The benefits (to me) out way the risk. We do have the Beemaster "Fan Site" which has well over 120 members, I have looked at it and really don't see the charm. There isn't anything there I couldn't do somewhat similar here in the forum.
My accepability of Twitter is a bit complicated and purely an experimentation to see if members wish to be notified "on the fly" more so than posting directly into the forum when siimple statements can be shared to the members through smart phones easily on Twitter, etc.. I don't know how it will work or how much interest there will be, thus the experimental part of Twitter.
As most people have either read or noticed, we have been invaded (probably BREACHED is a better word) by spambots in the forum - they are though VERY harmless, only creating an account and a web address in the signature line of their profile, and what makes them harmless - they never post. The only place you would see these members is in the membership listing when sort by date. That is the kind of info that I hope to announce on Twitter as well.
Robo, our exellent Technical Admin has added MANY traps and monitoring gizmos to reduce and track these spambots, thus reducing their numbers greatly. We list the many Social Network icons on the webpages for those who use such things, I just think it better to STICK WITH ONE rather than feeding data to many.: why seach for your keys throughout the house when you know you lost them in the living room theory.
The main reason for Twitter is the EASE of getting in and out - it isn't a service that requires as much computing technology and time as most the rest - and again, it is an experiment.
I tend not to be the kind of guy who would post "I'm sitting on the patio" as is shown in a Facebook related TV ad, where a father is haunting his son with the wall posting stuff. I hope to keep the info forum related, but surely will include personal stuff that I think the membership may find interesting.
So, I think of facebook as the Craigs List of Social Networking (no insult to the millions who use it regularly) I just think it is clutter much of the time. I have seen on the news MANY times where depressed and oppressed citizentry has Tweeted their stories to the free world andwas impressed when I saw a food-truck vendoe use Twitter to announce where she would be at any given time so that customers could meet her truck promptly as it arrived - improving on productivity on their end and increasing her business many times fold!
Every closet thoughhas skelitons and I'm sure Twitter does too, I just would like to offer a simple way for members to have access with mobile devices, etc., to get current updates to forum events and this seems to be a simple and effective way for those connected.
Don't mind me, just thinking aloud, but I think my reasoning is fairly sound.