I’ve been meaning to write something for ages about Twitter, and its potential opportunities and advantages for the journalist, blogger, PR and general media node.

I’ve got two Twitter accounts, one for MotorTorque and a personal account, and manage another, though I try to keep the three as separate as possible.

The site is a hive of creatives and PR types, so it’s almost a perfect forum for meeting like-minded people, exchanging idea and links, promoting links if you’re a little more mercenary, and generally indulging in what’s hopefully some mutually-beneficial banter.

It’s very trendy at the moment to write an article about how Twitter is very boring, how everyone on the site is a narcissistic show-off or a technophile snob. Luckily for me I’m all three.

Elsewhere on Twitter there are celebrities tweeting – Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry most notably – the occasional fake celebrity and some amusing parodies. The only celebs I’m following are Bill Oddie, Will Self, Robert Llewellyn and Wil Wheaton. Make of that what you will.

Liverpool Twitter and Twestival

I was going to write a post about which people from Liverpool to follow, but there are too many and I’m not sure how the relevant people would react to being outed on the wider web, so I’ll not bother.

Suffice to say if you are interested in what Liverpool’s Twitter ‘elite’ are up to you can check them out using Twittergrader.

This week I’ll be attending Liverpool Twestival – a meet-up of Liverpool’s great and good, assuming they’re on Twitter. As someone who met up with a bunch of blokes from a Doctor Who forum it holds little fear for me and should be a good opportunity to meet some fellow scribblers.

The dark side of Twitter

There are probably a hundred articles, mainly in the Daily Mail and Daily Express – the world’s worst newspapers – about how Twitter is a fertile breeding ground for spammers, scammers, paedophiles, swingers, socialists and Jonathan Ross.

I haven’t really experienced any of these – Peter Mandelson is clearly none of the above – but received quite a shock today when I dashed off an offhand tweet about Noel Edmonds, in light of his recent rant against a soulless minion on his Sky show Noel’s HQ.

Noel’s HQ is a programme that unsettles me somewhat – it seems to be part-That’s Life! and part-Nuremberg Rally, though it’s nice to see Cheggers in gainful employment again – and I said as much on Twitter.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I received an email indicating that Noel Edmonds had ‘followed’ me on Twitter.

It’s a genuine curveball, and one I feel singularly ill-equipped to deal with. Is it the real Noel? Will he be mad at me? Will he name me on his show? And what has this got to do with my Shatner’s Bassoon?

It’s the first genuine downside to Twitter I’ve come across thus far.