Tweeting at conferences

I’m getting interested in what happens when you tweet at a conference. It's clear that the back-channel can work well as an outlet for frustration, or those useful off-task exchanges, but also I do feel that the fluidity of ideas can be exposed in productive ways. However, I am at the same time completely unsure what the effect on remote followers might be. Twitter might help them participate or then again it might annoy or mislead them! Of course that's before you take into consideration the feelings of those co-present in RL who may not be favourably disposed to back-channeling. Do our new modes of communicative interaction cause us to challenge or re-make social divisions as well as social conventions? Are there new protocols of politeness (the public display of shame when your phone rings in a meeting) and are these necessarily more fluid at this moment in time? Well, the picture shows me in action via twitpic and was available at the end of my presentation here at Kronlund. And here’s something I’ve been reading about Twitter at conferences (the pdf is here). And this is a link to a book recommended by one of the conference participants.