Should I Twitter
Don Chafetz, Israel Philatelist
Should I Twitter? Does this picture belong on Facebook? Does this video belong on YouTube? What is Cloud computing?
The computer world has many new technology options which I am just now trying to understand. Since my children and granddaughters are not nearby to explain and show me how to use this new technology, I am struggling.
Besides learning the mechanisms of each new application, my mind is always trying to figure out how philately can use the technology to spread the word. I have taken my first steps due to the encouragement of my daughter, Gwyn, and am now on Facebook.
No, I have not posted an extensive profile. Instead, I use the site as a way to share pictures with my family and a few friends. For philatelists, I can visualize the site as a tool to exchange images of stamps or covers that might be of interest. The advantage of using Facebook is that the images are on the web and you can invite fellow collectors anywhere in the world to view them. There is no need to send the images to everyone. Also, you can add comments about the images and again everyone can view the comments and comment on the comments!
YouTube is a good site for posting videos that anyone can see. I have not formally arrived at the point where I have a video to post, but I have made a very crude one. I took some still images of one of my side collections, The Morris Canal, and placed them in Apple’s iMovie program. While crude, I was able to create and play the movie, but with no audio track.
Actually, there was another effort a friend, Fran Adams, and I made that was all audio, but had no video! It could have been posted to YouTube, but with no video it would not have been well received. The audio recording was created during the 2009 SANDICAL stamp exhibition in San Diego. I did an audio description of a Judacia exhibit that was in the show while Fran handled the audio and editing portion.
The bottom line is that with very simple and inexpensive technology philately has the means to show and demonstrate the beauty and joy of our hobby.
Twitter registration screen
While President Obama is a Twitterer, I am not. I have not found a need to be in continuous contact with anyone, letting them know my every move. But, I can see where it can come in handy when you are at a stamp show with a friend. For instance, as you and your friend are visiting dealer booths and doing your never ending search for the right items, I can visualize you Tweeting your results back and forth. In fact, you might have found some elusive items that he/she has been searching for and you can hurriedly inform him of its location.
As far as cloud computing is concerned, I am not exactly sure how it will work and the advantages it offers now to philately.
Nevertheless, as I understand it, you basically keep all your information on an internet computer (server) thus eliminating the need for your information on your home computer. I assume the advantage is that whatever records, images, etc. you have on your home computer would be available to you literally anywhere in the world via the internet and the cloud. At this point I am not sure about the value of the technology when you can use an iPod Touch to do the same thing now.
The main point of this discussion is that new technology and computer programs are becoming common place and we in philately need to be aware of them and try to harness their capability and power. “Why?” you might ask. Well for one thing they can make our philatelic life easier and more fun by helping us maintain our inventories, create a visual record of our collections and most importantly facilitate communication with other collections.
But for me, the most important long term reason is that these tools are really marketing tools that we must use to spread the word about our hobby. A video on philately posted on YouTube or pictures posted on Facebook can be seen by millions of potential collectors. Of course, both of these methods would have links to our web sites and information about our societies.
Remember, new members are the life blood of any growing society. It is now time to more fully embrace the new technology and turn it to our advantage. 
