I was reading in the CT Law Tribune that courts in Philadelphia have launched a twitter feed of news and announcements.
What is twitter and why should the judicial branch have a feed?
Most people have the same reaction to Twitter that I did: Who needs this?
From Twitter wiki:
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.
Twitter is the way I get my news. I subscribe to feeds from the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, The American Bar Association, Sons of Sam Horn, the Red Sox, NPR News, and ESPN. When something happens in the world I get a message on my computer that is 140 characters or less that provides me with a brief description of the story and a link. If I want to read more then I click on the link.
I start my morning by opening up a program called Tweetdeck. Tweet deck makes Twitter more useful by allowing me to break down feeds from friends, news, and sports.
One can also choose to send “tweets” to my cell phone.
I get updates on CT Law blogs by “following” Dan Schwartz, Gideon and Susan Cartier Liebel.
Twitter is an efficient way to bring information to me and allow me to sort through what I want to read very quickly.
The judicial branch can inform attorneys and the public of programs, changes in forms, updates in procedures, decisions, court closings and a variety of other information by creating a twitter feed.
I eagerly await for the day that Superior Court decisions come to me via twitter. That day will be tweet!