Town Appoints, Pays Resident Tweeter
A small town in the UK has appointed a resident tweeter.
Darlington, County Durham has appointed local teacher Mike McTimoney as resident tweeter. McTimoney will be responsible for keeping residents up to date with Darlington events as well as reporting local news.
The BBC cites McTimoney as saying he is very interested in social media and that he jumped at the chance to tweet for his town.
"I am really into social media and all the fantastic opportunities the internet offers, so I thought this would be an interesting thing to do."
The teacher will be paid £140 per year and the account (@TheDarloBard) currently has 141 followers. While many of the tweets are about the media attention garnered by being the first "Town Tweeter," McTimoney assured new followers that tweets would soon return to normal.
"… today's new followers: "it's not always BBC this, 5Live that". Sometimes I comment on how busy the town centre is, despite the rain ;)"
The Twitter account is part of a larger experiment dubbed The Darlington Experiment 2.0. The idea is to embrace social media by using the internet to share news about town events. Residents are encouraged to upload photos and videos showcasing the town.
Follow us on Twitter for more tech news, reviews, and exclusive updates!
- Next Generation iPhone Spotted by Developers
- Black Friday Brawls: Plenty Fought, No One Died
- Couple Gets Married at Best Buy on Black Friday
- Office 2010 Ships in 2010, Beta Now
- Duke Nukem: D-Day Teased Not DNF
- AT&T Offering Refurbed iPhone 3GS for $49
- Droid Gets Porn App Marketplace
- App Developer Hires Hacker, Security Firms Pissed
- America Spends $595M Online on Black Friday
- Small-Time Company Sues Nintendo, Sony, MSFT
- iPhone App Sends Messages to Xbox Live Friends
- Microsoft: Natal Will Replace TV Remotes
- Google's Caffeine Search Engine Goes Live
- PS3 Sales Reach All Time High Over Black Friday
- Nintendo Sold 1.5 Million Systems Last Week
- Man Arrested Robbing RuneScape Characters
- 12-inch Netbooks to Go Mainstream in 2010
- Leak Says Google Phone is a "Certainty"
- Using Google-Wave to Track A Man-Hunt

who cares!!! seriously twitter is the fail of the planet. this guy is not important and whoever decided to pay him should be shot.
who cares!!! seriously twitter is the fail of the planet. this guy is not important and whoever decided to pay him should be shot.
Can someone block shamgar already?
Actually...I think they should just delete SHAMGAR completely. He is talking about shooting someone...just because a town decided to pay someone for keeping people informed.
SHAMGAR...you are an example of why this world is sliding into the toilet. We don't need to hear your negativity and lack of value you place on human life. If you don't have something constructive to say...don't say it.
My god I hate Twitter.
Guys...I have no idea what Twitter is. I don't use it. I probably never will. What is funny is that you can't just let the people that have "no life" live it the way they want to live it. Obviously someone does have a use for it. Does that make them any less than you...just because they want to cram their heads full of useless information?
"Wow that's stupid"
"My God I hate (insert anything here)"
You know what? YOU ARE USELESS. You have nothing to say. You want to make people feel inadequate because they are doing something you don't like. Have you guys EVER said anything positive about anything?
Why don't YOU get a life. Help us all out a little bit and hate stuff by just talking to yourself...because you know what? That's all you care about. Yourself. You. What you think. And you know what?
I doubt anyone cares.
My god I hate kansur0.
shamgar is my hero
Ah Dandalf. Really glad you could not resist. You're just proving my point dude. Good on ya.
And Dandalf...by they way...I gave you the first thumbs up on your hate post. Congratulations no mind.
I'm convinced twitter is a gigantic waste of time.
I'm convinced twitter is a gigantic waste of time.
Compulsionnra...have you used Twitter before? I haven't. What has you convinced it is a waste of time? I never wanted to install or use it because I don't want to have to tell everyone what I am doing every five minutes...unless of course I had lots of stuff to hate like Dandalf.
HAHAHAHA!
Dandalf 12:30 Wow. This coffee sucks!
Dandalf 12:31 Ow! I burnt my lip! I HATE MY LIP!
Dandalf 12:35 I drank all my coffee. I HATE IT WHEN MY CUP IS EMPTY!
AHAHAHAH! Am I close?
GEE! I wonder if there is some way to make millions twittering?
me for president!!! sorry that what i say is the truth and people cant handle it. the only purpose twitter serves is for stalkers to get their 'fix' of knowledge on the person they are stalking. if a town has to pay someone to make twitter updates and only twitter updates that is pathetic. 140 chars max for comments on the town? how important can that be. FAIL!!!!!!!!!!