May

28

Twitter from Mars

Filed Under Science 

I’ve never quite figured out why anyone would want to use Twitter. Twitter is a “microblog” where you post short, very frequent updates Why would you want the whole world to know that you’re just about to go bike riding, or eat supper, or go to bed? It all seems a bit narcissistic to me.

However, someone (presumably at NASA) has adopted the persona of the Mars Phoenix rover currently on the surface of Mars, and is twittering regular updates “from the planet,” as it were. Each post has a snippet of information, or a link to pictures, or something of interest.

Overall it’s a pretty cool way to get the average person involved minute by minute with this latest space mission. Kudos to NASA for their originality.

Comments

2 Responses to “Twitter from Mars”

  1. Kevin on May 28th, 2008 3:51 pm

    Hmmm
    What is the twitter name of the Martian?
    You have me interested.

    Twitter is not just the brief glimpse, but also another way to network with other educators. I have learned about all sorts of cool projects and applications via Twitter. It’s another tool for us to use, if we have the inclination and time.

    Kevin

  2. Linus on May 29th, 2008 8:26 am

    Sorry I forgot to mention the location of the tweet. The page for it is at http://twitter.com/marsphoenix and the Twitter name is marsphoenix

    As to networking, it’s a cool idea using Twitter for that, but it seems to be a chicken/egg question. If you don’t have a network, why would you want Twitter? If you don’t have Twitter, it’s pretty hard to get a network.

    Linus

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