How Flipboard Saved My Twitter(ing)

I was suffering from Info Overload!

During this last year of transition, I fell into quite a love affair with Twitter. I found that hands down, it was the best way to keep up with trends in the learning community, and to build connections with professionals all over the world. Yet, I found that after following 600 people, I just couldn't keep up anymore. For a couple of months, I let my account passively shift to wallflower status--hanging out as a casual observer in the technology world. I still obsessively checked CNET and Engadget, and tried to stay up on my technology news, but my learning and information interactions on Twitter stopped suddenly. 

Two weeks ago, I volunteered at the Learning 3.0 Conference and I was introduced to the mobile news app, Flipboard. Now, as an self-proclaimed nerd, you would have thought that I was using Flipboard already, but instead, I had been attempting to manage my Twitter feeds using TweetDeck. This worked for me just fine when sitting in front of a computer all day, but I found for mobile, it just wasn't cutting it. So when one of my fine session leaders suggested Flipboard, I went to the app, and immediately feel in love. Flipboard combined with Alicia Cowan's post, How to Deal with Twitter Overwhelm, has made me rediscover my love affair again. Instead of actively following everyone, I now used Alicia's ideas for using have specific lists--one for "regular follows" (about fifty people), other lists for CCASTD members, and specific lists for people who actively tweet about Articulate, Captivate and more. Additionally, Flipboard allows me to add news based on hashtag searches, so during #DevLearn, I was able to add that hashtag and follow the buzz on my phone and tablet. What I like most about it is that it enhances the interface, and I can access it anywhere. We'll see how this works in the long term, but for now it's putting me out there in the world again.