I’ve gone public to stay connected

There is much debate in twitter land about public vs private accounts. I have a private account and I like it… but I do miss out on participating in hashtag debates etc because my stream is not available for indexing on search.twitter.com.

I’ve always wanted twitter to have a feature where I could include an escape charater in my tweet (eg start with a ! or a ~ or similar) that would allow that tweet only to appear in the public timeline… but until that feature is implemented, it’s either all or nothing.

So, I’ve created a second twitter profile called JodieM_ex. The ex on the end is a bit of an old construction / joinery term which means “out of” so this is @jodiem “out of” the private tweet stream.

However, I’ve created it mainly because I’m lazy… it’s a great way for me to share what is happening on my forthcoming overseas trip to family, friends and other interested parties… they can just go there any time they want and get a stream of the latest news as to what I’m doing… and I know that I will update this as I can just update it via SMS… that way I don’t have to send postcards or emails and accidentally forget to share the news with someone who may be interested.

I’ve also added all my trip details such as flights and accommodation to a Google calendar and shared that with close family. I sync that calendar with my mobile phone so I have all the details at hand where ever I am.

I’m taking my eee pc with me and I will be able to access email and the internet, including twitter via the mobile phone… or if all else fails there will be internet cafe’s…

So I hope all this personal technology works and I can keep everyone up to date with what I’m doing.