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Archives for January 2009

Twittering

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Declan Curry | 12:19 UK time, Wednesday, 14 January 2009

So - do you Tweet?

The verb "to tweet" may not be in the dictionary quite yet. But it's becoming so widespread its entry must surely be a matter of time.

It means to post a message to your virtual friends, via the website.

People can choose to receive your messages - or you can invite them to follow you. And you decide whose messages you want to receive in return.

The message can be about whatever you want. The only rule is - it can't be any longer than 140 characters.

If you don't Tweet, I can hear you rolling your eyes. You're thinking, "What is the point?"

Fans say - you can tell many people what you're doing or thinking in one simple message. You can ask for information, or handy tips, from your circle of friends. You can set up impromptu meetings, or let people know you're in the area for coffee or a pint.

There's nothing unique about this. Facebook and other social network sites let you tell your friends what you're doing with their status updates.

Blogs let you express your thoughts at length - and let other people react to them.

But who says forms of communications have to be unique?

We don't stop sending Christmas cards because we have email. We didn't stop letter writing when we got the phone.

And there is one point of difference with Twitter. It's immediate. It's direct. And at just 140 characters, it enforces a certain brevity of communication.

So much for the social chit-chat.

As we discussed on the programme last week, it's also developing a business dimension.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½, and other news organisations, use it to alert followers to breaking or developing stories.

Companies like Starbucks use it to pass on information, or answer their customers' questions or observations.

And that will annoy some out there. Some social networkers think Facebook has become too corporate, with its adverts and its icons of support for commercial products.

Twitter, they thought, was above that.

But companies with things to say will always find ways of using the most modern forms of communications.

So why do we use Twitter on Working Lunch?

My colleague Zoe looks after the programme's own Tweets - you can sign up to them at . She uses them to tell you what we're doing, and ask you what you think we should be doing.

But I also send out my own Tweets - which you can subscribe to at . (Bafflingly, hundreds of people have already done so.)

In fact, I sent out a few messages from the studio in an idle moment during yesterday's programme.

Some of you thought it must be an imposter; let me assure you, no-one else would want to pretend to be me ...

I'll try to send some more today.

Some of you will be amused. Some will be informed. Some of you will think it's just drivel.

That's great. This isn't about me blethering on. It's also about your response - whatever that may be.

And it also about the nature of innovation. New ideas take root and develop when people try them out, test their limits, and see how they work for them. That's what progress is about - answering that question, "what happens if? ..."

The short sharp stick

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Declan Curry | 17:31 UK time, Monday, 5 January 2009

Hello. We're back.

And if it's not too late, I'd like to wish you a happy new year.

We can only hope it will turn out to be happy. If you were reading the same articles as I was over the holidays, I won't be surprised if you're feeling gloomy about the next 12 months.

Remember that old phrase from Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado - later re-used by Willie Whitelaw - the "short sharp shock"? The danger is we may get one part of it - sharp - but not the other - short.

The grimmest forecasts suggest this recession will be much more severe than the one we suffered in the early 1990s. One think tank, the Centre for Economic and Business Research, predicts the economy will shrink by 3 percent. The average forecast is for growth to fall by around 1.5 percent.

And warned it could also last longer. If the economy was to follow the same timetable as last time and re-start its growth by this autumn, it argues we should already be seeing the early green shoots of recovery by now; as yet, there is no sign.

Exactly how to revive the economy is going to occupy a lot of the programme in the next few days. In particular, the use of cheap credit to stimulate borrowing and spending.

The Bank of England's interest rate controllers meet again this week; they're widely expected to cut the Bank's core rate yet again, from its current low of 2 percent.

It's a prospect that frightens some Working Lunch viewers, who've already seen the amount they earn on their savings fall.

As Heather Simpson pointed out in an email, "it means a reduction in income of up to 50% and few workers are taking this reduction in pay. Pensioners have already had to make cutbacks due to inflation, high food prices and huge increases in council tax."

Another viewer, David Buttle, reminds us that it's not just pensioners who suffer from interest rate cuts. He's 21, and has been living off savings while he grows his new business. "I am terrified of the ever decreasing interest rates!" he writes.

V Whitworth says "the prudent are being penalised", and is so annoyed by low interest rates that she (or he - I'm sorry, it's not clear from the email) is going on a savers' strike - cashing in Premium Bonds and withdrawing cash from the banks and building societies until they pay enough interest to get it back.

But we forget something. While the headlines will focus on the Bank of England's bank rate - that 2% rate - the high street banks are offering more than that in their race to build up their cash piles.

A quick check with the website shows a short-term fixed rate bond paying 5.1% interest, Internet savings accounts offering 4.5%, and savings accounts paying 4.5% or more, in return for giving them a month or so's notice when you want the cash back.

As Working Lunch viewer Dr Robert Doy emailed, "savers must take responsibility for their affairs. They must constantly monitor their savings and move it as necessary ... not leave it in one place and throw up their hands in despair when interest rates fall."

Moneyfacts points out the cost of sitting on your hands; while there are higher interest rates available, the average savings rate on a no notice account now stands at just 1.48%. And more than one-third of the savings accounts on offer pay interest of just 1% - or even less.

If interest rates are cut again this week, those accounts won't have much left to trim.

PS You may have noticed that this blog is rather late in the day. I'm going to blog in the afternoon, after the programme. But I'll keep you up to date during the morning with ultra-brief updates on .

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