Crittering and Twitticising

Over the last 18 months or so that I've been twittering, I've been at more and more events which are being live-twittered. Indeed have been doing some of it myself.

But I'm getting increasingly interested about the influence of twittering on the dynamics of the events themselves (Zuckerberg/SXSW anyone?). I think that audiences are getting quicker than ever to judge events they're at, to be the first to tweet.

I came up with a definition (or two actually) during yesterday's Tim Berners-Lee talk at NESTA:

Crittering or Twitticising: Offering live commentary or criticism of a talk, lecture or conference using Twitter (rather than verbatim reporting)

Such crittering can totally influence the mood of the twitterers in the room (which may well include the speakers). And certainly outside too.

I'm not saying that crittering or twitticising is good or bad. Just that "critters" are becoming increasingly influential at all of these events.

The strange thing about the TBL/Nesta event yesterday though was that I was tech-free. Just a pen and a notebook until I got home and checked out the chatter on summize and blogged my experience. I quite liked it that way, but fully expect to be crittering or twitticising the next events I go to...