Responding to email, I received the following question:
I’m new to the nets and I’m curious about Twitter. What the purpose of Twitter?
This is a topic I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. Why not today?
If you go to the front page of Twitter, it explains what Twitter is:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
Note: Twitter is a tool to answer one question: what are you doing? The confusion comes in because people use it as a communication tool, almost like instant messenger (IM). The difference? IM conversations are private amongst those participating. On Twitter when you respond to one person unless you direct message (DM) the person, everyone receives that message. I often hear that people are overwhelmed by Twitter because they receive so many updates they aren’t interested in, yet do not wish to offend anyone. Completely understandable since many people do not use Twitter the way it was intended to be used.
In my response to the person that emailed me, I gave an example of proper Twitter use, for lack of another term. Who would be a better example of using Twitter than the Twitter team? If you look at their Twitter profiles you’ll see for the most part they use Twitter to answer the question “what are you doing?” and or respond to someone. They do not start conversations and hold them like IM. They do not broadcast what other people are doing. They don’t link to messages that aren’t relevant to what is being said right now.
They answer the damn question: what are you doing right now?
I know, you’re waiting for me to tell you how to use Twitter, right? I don’t care how you use it but I will say that the number of people following you does not necessarily equal the number of people listening to you. Don’t let the numbers fool you, especially if you are Twitter happy. The more you lean away from “what are you doing right now” the more “boring” you become, meaning that your messages become irrelevant to your mass audience. Using Twitter to share what you are about to do or just finished doing, what you are thinking about right now, share the blog article you just wrote, the picture you just took, stream live video of what you’re doing right now…those are all great uses for Twitter, something a mass audience would be interested in. Responding to twits from people about those things would be a conversation people could follow. Starting a conversation, limited to 140 characters, with one person and blasting those messages to all of your followers…does that sound smart to you?
I received a Twitter tip:
I thought this would be good for you since you’re moving. Start a local Twitter account for the city you are moving to and subscribe to those in the area. It would be a great way to meet new friends and stay up to date on what is going on locally.
That’s a very good idea. That way I wouldn’t bombard people who don’t live in the city with things they probably wouldn’t have any interest in. Thanks Dale!
As technology advances more tools will be launched for us to use. The key is to use these tools the most efficient way to achieve the end goal.
I stopped using Twitter because I was getting to many messages that made me wonder why the person was twittering it. Eating a bologna sandwich? Just woke up and brushed my teeth? Making my bed? Stupid updates no one could possibly care about, not even a spouse.
The question: is this interesting? should be asked each time someone twitters.
I don’t use Twitter but I looked at the profiles of the Twitter crew. They seem more considerate of their followers.
I don’t have anything I want to tell everyone all at once so I don’t use Twitter. I live on IM.
We have a set of private twitter accounts for work to keep teams informed with status updates. Works cool for that. I don’t have a need for it personally because I talk to my friends.
Don’t get me started on stupid twitters. Did you read on Scoble’s twitter that he knew better than to hold a conversation because it would piss people off? My take from that is that he knows he’s pushing it and doesn’t want to overdo it.
I have a tip too! Please do not tell me to “see” a picture posted on twitter. What else would I do but look at it?
A friend of mine uses it to share more about his personal life. I think he missed the memo that some twits are boring.
Felicia, that’s funny.
Twitter tip: Don’t try to be cute because it falls flat.
I have a private Twitter account for true family and friends. I reject everyone else. In the Bio I have for friends and family only.
#8 – There’s a dude that says marinate at the end of almost every twitter. I unfollowed because I was sick of reading it. Stupid.
@Octavio (1): You’re right on point with that statement. I use twitter for different reasons, so I’m not going to stop using it because of people that incessantly post inane and retarded messages, I just eject them.
I have 500 followers, and I’m following ~520 people. If I start seeing twitters about your lunch and your wife and a whole bunch of other stuff that has NOTHING to do with things I find interesting, fun or educational, you’re *GONE*.
I use twitter as a broadcast system. I want to tell people about interesting things I find on the web or interesting things that my friends have twittered that I want to pass along to my followers. At the same time, I want to receive RELEVANT information that will help me decide how I want to utilize social media and what shows I want to watch and who’s doing something different or new.
Following > 500 people, there’s no room for people who feel like lifeblogging on twitter. None. SSSSSSEEYA! That’s not status updates, that’s A SHOW. If I wanted to see/hear/read your show, I’d SUBSCRIBE to it. So, people who clutter up my twitter pages with garbage get DAS BOOT! >:D
I wrote a post about my intense twitter habits a few months ago. I never knew I was so particular with my habits until I broke it all down. My habits have definitely changed since then though. As I follow more people, I feel less engaged and attached to the people I follow. I can’t keep up with everyone’s tweets like I would like to. At the same time, I enjoy being followed and would like to reciprocate for everyone who follows me, assuming they aren’t spam. I just can’t do that though, because I feel overwhelmed by the people I already follow.
A problem I’ve noticed is the more people you follow, the faster your twitter moves, giving you the false assertion that you should be keeping up with your stream. Or, perhaps you feel the need to keep up and reply to a lot of things that tweet by. People with large followings should understand this dance, and don’t simply assume that people could unfollow you if they hated it. True, they can. But they liked you enough to follow you in the first place. Why give them reason to unfollow you because you look like an ass who doesn’t exercise self-control?
I’m gonna stop here before I end up blogging in your comments section.
I HATE Twitter because people are intensely stupid using it. Octavio is right, most people over use it. Why do people make one on one talks public? Most @’s should be direct messages.
I talk to my friends on aim and yahoo. I don’t have the need for Twitter until the weekends. My friends and I use it to keep up with where everyone is going on Friday and Saturday night.
I use twitter to get interesting links from blogposts I don’t necessarily know of (like now, I arrived via a Bill Cammack’s tweet) and to exchange links with anyone interested while I am surfing the web.
Rather than writing an extensive blogpost each time I find something thought provoking, I tweet the link.
It also serves as a reminder for myself (when I don’t necessarily see the point of bookmarking permanently, just for the sake of one interesting article or news).
Otir (15) has just demonstrated my _personal_ use of twitter. I thought this was an interesting discussion, so I re-twittered it so that people following me could either ignore it, read it and get something out of it or post their own opinions.
On the receiving end, I like to get information that helps me expand my mind and knowledge and that I would like to pass on to others to hopefully enrich their lives as well.
Hearing someone’s play-by-play of someone’s mundane life serves neither purpose, so they need to be ejected to clear the way for pertinenent, relevant, entertaining or educational messages.
Unfortunately there are people using in instead of email, phone, etc. and that is where the problems come in me thinks.
Bill and Octavio, I think those messages are meant for one or two people like spouses but they put it on Twitter and tell everyone.
@Greg (17): Yes, sometimes, you’re right. It’s people broadcasting personal messages to everyone instead of using Direct Messages.
However, there are people that use Twitter as a storytelling tool. Some people like to narrate using twitter. Sometimes it’s fiction, and sometimes it’s non-fiction.
When I detect fiction (or spam) I delete it off the bat or don’t follow it when I get the notification that someone new is following me.
Non-fiction is harder to detect, but as soon as I realize that someone is trying to act their lives out on twitter as if anyone cares about that, I delete them. If I want to listen to someone lifeblogging, I’ll go to Justin.tv. I’m not going to allow someone to dilute my twitter stream with drivel.
I wish Twitter people would stick to the question: what are you doing right now? If you just read something, took a picture, thought of something go for it. Anything else, put it elsewhere.
I didn’t realize there was a question that was supposed to be answered. I was told it was a microblogging service.
Unfortunately there are people using in instead of email, phone, etc. and that is where the problems come in me thinks.
It’s not email. It’s not IM. I’m not sure I want to see links because I use delicious for that.
Just finished listening to the 3by9 podcast. Scrivs said that 99% of the time Tyme is right in the advice she gives but most of the time the person is not ready to hear what she said. Tyme said at least a year ago that privacy levels were needed for social site. Facebook announced them yesterday.
I think the same is for Twitter. More people abuse Twitter than use it in the way it was created. I know many people who spend most of their time sending twits back and forth they don’t accomplish anything. I do not use Twitter much but if I do use it more, it will not be a main method of talking to people. Because I don’t use it like that I see how stupid that is but I see how a person caught up in Twitter love could be blind to how stupid they are using Twitter.