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[shapps]

Regulars on the Welwyn Hatfield Forum, Facebook or my http://www.shapps.com website may know that I use a service called Twitter to type a short note about whatever I'm up to each day.

The message can't be longer than 140 characters and I can update it by either going to http://www.twitter.com/grantshapps and posting my update there or more often by simply texting twitter with a short note. Consequently I tend to text when I'm on the train or walking between meetings, or... wherever really.

Anyway, with this Welwyn Hatfield Forum alone having received over 2.3m page impressions during 2008, I knew that people would at least half notice.

A point driven home when I was at my local shops the other day, when someone approached me and asked if I'd had a nice family tea in WGC earlier in the day. How did they know?  Well, I'd happened to randomly mention it on Twitter and they'd seen it displayed on the top of the forum!

On other occasions I've mentioned that I'll be at the Despatch Box debating with Margaret Beckett, as Housing Minister she's my opposite number, or that I'd be on the Today Programme or doing the Sky Newspaper Review and on many occasions folks will comment about these activities on Facebook.

So it's an interactive way of letting constituents and others know what you're up to and often brings comment back either in person, on the forum or via Facebook.

But now there's a way of tracking what MPs are tweeting about at http://www.tweetminster.co.uk and although I'm currently the only Conservative MP twittering, I'm sure that will change over time too as others discover how easy it is to update a message in one place and have it displayed all over the Web.

Happy New Year,
Grant.

[mythoughts]

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps was blogging from Sunday night with photographs of his home and inviting other people in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency to share their photos.

 
http://www.lgcplus.com/News/2009/02/new_media_scores_in_snow_storms.html
 
 

[Mighty Hatfield]

ive just seen the cameron story myself, someone said he'd led a foul mouthed outburst on live radio about twitter.
 
Whilst he did swear twice, im hardly going to get too upset about it, but equally, I dont think using the words "twitter" and "tw@" in the same sentence is the highest form of wit that some of the press are reporting it as either. And if it was the other way round, and Brown had said something similar, Cameron would be all over it at the next opportunity.
 
Id like to know what Grant made of being referred to (as an avid twitterer) as (potentially) a "tw@" though. 
 
 

[mythoughts]

http://www.instantmessagingplanet.com/security/article.php/3833521
 
How does it feel to be twitless?

[shapps]

I'm living with it ;-)

[brindy]

Any idea why your account has been suspended?

Thanks in advance.

@brindy

[shapps]

Any idea why your account has been suspended?

Thanks in advance.

@brindy

Have filed a help desk ticket to ask, but I see people complaining it can take a month for a reply!

[mythoughts]

All that twitters isn't gold.
 
That's the problem with technology - when my broadband connection goes down I can't work. It's as simple as that!

[shapps]

I've read that people get suspended sometimes for mentioning the same URL time and again in posts. Many of my posts point back to subjects here on the Welwyn Hatfield Forum. I've pointed this out to twitter in case this was the perceived problem.

[mythoughts]

I've read that people get suspended sometimes for mentioning the same URL time and again in posts. Many of my posts point back to subjects here on the Welwyn Hatfield Forum. I've pointed this out to twitter in case this was the perceived problem.

What twits they are - we all wanted to know what the weather was like in Turkey!

[GARYx]

I've read that people get suspended sometimes for mentioning the same URL time and again in posts. Many of my posts point back to subjects here on the Welwyn Hatfield Forum. I've pointed this out to twitter in case this was the perceived problem.

That is a possibility, spammers use Twitter a lot and even try to follow legitimate users. They try to get you to visit their commercial website to buy stuff or sign up to "adult" services or cams. Twitter may have written a bot to try to identify these twitter critters automatically but it mistakenly pointed a tenticle at Grant. You might as well open a 2nd account and use it as a backup.

[shapps]

Back on www.twitter.com/grantshapps

In the process all my 555 tweets (stretching back a year and a half) have disappeared, along with my 2,500 followers and as well as everyone that I had followed.  So it's back to square one and you might be wondering why I'd bother to start again from scratch?

Well, there has been plenty of debate in the media about whether twitter serves a purpose or not, but for me the reality is that I can post a single message and have it appear on this forum (though I notice the applet hasn't come back to life yet following the problems), on my own website at http://www.shapps.com and also on my facebook account - all for about 20 seconds work. So twitter had become a very good way of letting people know what I am doing and encouraging feedback.

Surprisingly my twitter account being suspended sparked some interest not only from our own Welwyn Hatfield Times, but also on the back page of The Telegraph's business section today - though what it has to do with business I'm unsure!

But why was it suspended in the first place?

Unfortunately I still don't really know and therefore can't be certain that it won't happen again.  There seem to be two most likely possibilities:

1. I tweeted from different IP addresses, including foreign ones. This seems an unlikely reason to me because you would have thought this is what is supposed to happen on the internet.

2. So more likely; I frequently referred to the same URL - often http://www.shapps.com or http://www.shapps.com/forum in my tweets and this may have been confused as spam by the automatic systems that twitter use to monitor posts. In fact they were just references to various news stories or discussions on this Forum and clearly within the twitter rules.

I started tweeting in March 2008 and despite this account problem I intend to carry on because it seems to me that representative democracy works best when you make an effort to stay in touch.

So anyway -- my twitter account is back, but I'm afraid that you'd need to re-follow me at www.twitter.com/grantshapps if you would like to stay up to date with what I'm up to here in Welwyn Hatfield and nationally as Shadow Housing Minister.

Grant.

[GARYx]

You can accomplish the same using a blog and RSS feed. Losing accounts so easily and no real support from anyone at Twitter to resolve problems are further reasons to dislike Twitter. Remember what David Cameron said about Twitter on a radio interview! :-)

[Anne]

I have only just read this thread...

I'm on Twitter too. I have set up lists, and in my politics list have tweetminster, Downing Street and grantshapps 'side-by-side'... 

Grant: Do you want to follow me?

PS. Your Twitter account may have been suspended due to marketing scams. I'll email you.

[shapps]

Hi Anne,

I started on twitter back in March 2008 and that problem was some months back and since then the original account came back and I'm now careful to mention a whole variety of different websites in my links, rather than mainly referring to shapps.com or this forum in my tweets. Constantly tweeting the same URL may cause the problem.

Just coming up on 5,000 twitter followers and continuing to find twitter useful in all sorts of surprising ways.  For example, I recently twittered that I was due to make a speech in Watford about how a future Conservative Government would 'green up' all existing housing. Now, despite only twittering about it 24 to 48 hours in advance, when the day of the speech actually arrived I found quite a number of people in the audience had applied for tickets only because they'd heard about the event through my twitter feed.

So there are all sorts of useful applications for twitter, from setting up your own personalised news feed (only get the news you're interested in by following specific people or organisations) by using twitter lists, to advertising your own activities. But most of all, I like twitter because I can update one simple feed of 140 characters and it will appear all over the place; at the top of this Forum, on Shapps.com on my Facebook page, Tweetminster.com and so on...

Happy New Year to you and all our Welwyn Hatfield Forum readers.

Grant.