Phenomenon: Over 1,000 people - or 'tweeters' - are now following Sussex's updates on the 'microblogging' website Twitter.
Are you keeping in touch with developments at Sussex on Twitter? Over 1,000 people inside and outside the University now are, as this latest social media phenomenon takes off across the world.
The University of Sussex uses its Twitter account, first set up in February, to provide quick and frequent 140-character updates on life and news at the University.
On 24 June it passed the 1,000 mark for 'followers', i.e. Twitter users who have chosen to receive updates from Sussex.
The Director of Communications, Rob Read, says: "Twitter's a quick and easy way of sharing latest news about Sussex with a wide community of people.
"And people pass on what we put out there. For example, there's an avid wildlife community out there in Sussex, and when the bee movie went up that got passed round rapidly."
And, like writing a good headline, the discipline of cutting text down to 140 characters forces 'tweeters' to think about what they are really trying to say.
Other parts of the University using Twitter include the Library, CDEC and alumni teams, all of whom update their feeds for their own 'followers'. The University is looking at a quick tool that would make it possible in the future to bring these together in one place and see all the feeds going out from Sussex.
Other institutions are using Twitter as a key student and staff communication channel: one college in the USA modelled their whole disaster communications emergency planning using the tool, as a ready presence of news and information if their own IT systems were shut down.
But Twitter's not just a one-way channel for organisations; it also provides a great insight into what people are saying about Sussex.
Rob says: "Potential students were 'tweeting' their friends about the student open day in mid June - and making favourable comparisons with other universities."
Within SPLASH, it is possible to view any 'tweets' that mention the University.
The University is looking at how to develop a presence on other social media to support potential students. It's not all Facebook and Twitter; computer users are accessing sites such as Orkut in Brazil and India, Rediff also in India, and VKontakte in Russia. "We need to provide tools to staff to ensure that we can share information through these routes as well," says Rob.