In the past two months, I’ve signed up for Twitter, dabbled in a few retweets and @ replies, and become completely hooked. Admittedly, I was originally very skeptical of the micro-blogging site. Status updates in only 140 characters? What could I possibly learn from someone in 140 characters? But once I started immersing myself in the Twitterverse, I quickly found that just as in any other aspect of life, as long as you find the right people to follow, you’re sure to find more engaging conversations than people talking about what they had for lunch that day (me: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!) or how many loads of laundry they need to get done (me: three!).
One of the most interesting uses of Twitter that I’ve been recently exploring is its use as a job hunting site, particularly for the media sector. Created by the brains behind @themediaisdying, two of the most useful Twitterers for media professionals to follow are @themediaishirin (self-described as: “Helping laid off media employees find new work 140 characters at a time.”) and @themediaishuntn (“Helping the media back into the workforce 140 characters at a time.”) Through the “hirin” feed media jobs postings are listed, and through the “huntn” feed users looking for work can post mini-resumes.
The New York Magazine website stands out from the crowd as an exemplary online magazine due to its wide array of web 2.0 features. Visitors to the online version of this print magazine become active participants in the website’s offerings through RSS feeds of articles, blogs on various themes including food and entertainment, bookmarking tools, streaming video, and sidebar widgets for tags and popular posts.