malki http://xrl.us/becqjm: Most people have no idea how Twitter could possibly be useful, in any conceivable world, ever. Also get off their lawn
about 11 hours ago from twitterrific
Some people are clueless and cranky about new technology. Some are eager early adopters. And some are eager and clueless.
David Pogue, a tech writer for the NY Times, seems to fall under the third category. If you visit his Twitter profile, @davidpogue [now @Pogue], he seems like a fairly normal Twitterer. But yesterday, he wrote a blog post about Twitter that was probably well-intentioned, but which ended up being so wrong-headed and just plain misinformed that readers are left puzzled and underwhelmed by the very service he ends up tentatively recommending. It’s no surprise when many of his commenters thank him for steering them away from such a useless, time-wasting service. “I’ve been skeptical of Twitter from the get-go,” many of them say, in effect. “I’ve held out against it this long, and after your post I’ll never use it.”
So let’s ignore Pogue’s post as a nice try that unfortunately failed, and move on to the main questions.
What is Twitter?
Twitter began as a way of a) using text messages to post updates (or “twitters,” “tweets” or “micro-blogs”) to a website, where other people could read them and b) of receiving, also via text message, updates from friends and acquaintances. A year or so ago, Twitter made its API public, which meant that outsiders were able to design third-party applications that could live on computer desktops, in browsers or on mobile phones, which could be used to update a person’s Twitter feed and read other people’s tweets. I use a service called Ping.fm to post updates not just to Twitter but to all my social networks, and an iPhone app called TwitterFon to read my Twitter feeds and carry on conversations. (My Twitter feed.)
Why is Twitter special?
Twitter makes it possible to send the same text message (or text-message-sized blurb) out to ten, a hundred or a thousand people. This sounds like spam, but it’s not, for the simple reason that Twitter is opt-in. People who want to hear from you will follow your tweets. People who don’t, won’t. That’s one strength of Twitter as a communication tool over simple text messages or emails: more people tend to have your cell number or email address than you typically want to hear from. Not so with Twitter: any time you tire of hearing from a particular person, just tell Twitter to stop texting you their updates, or unfollow the person altogether.
Why should you Twitter?
The main reason I personally Twitter is because Twitter is FUN. But everyone has a different reason for Twittering. Some use it to keep abreast of what their friends or favorite celebrities are doing, minute by minute. Some like to engage in conversations using @replies. Some use Twitter’s search feature, at search.twitter.com, to follow trending topics in the Twitterverse. Some join Twitter to promote themselves, their product, their company, their ideas or their website. Each of these uses leads to a different style of Twittering.
Twittering is different from a more immersive social network such as Facebook in that communication and information sharing is the key. Do you like broadcasting your ideas across the web? Are you prone to pithy witticisms? Do you want a larger network on which to complain about or praise the companies you patronize and the company you keep? Do you have a website to promote or a web-based business to market for? Twitter is excellent tool for all of these purposes.
What should you Twitter about?
Pogue makes it sound like you should never Twitter about what you are doing right now, but that’s not true. Throw away the rules. Anything that can be condensed into 140 characters is fair game. Twitter about
And here are a few suggestions:
- Don’t protect your updates.
Twitter allows you to “protect your updates,” which blocks people from seeing your Twitter feed unless you give them permission. I’m sorry to say it, but this defeats the purpose: Twitter is about an open conversation. Protecting your updates keeps the conversation small, tight and closed. It cuts you off from the larger network. I strongly advise against it.
- Follow-backs are nice, but not required.
Don’t listen to people who say you have to follow everyone back who follows you. It’s nice if you do that, but let’s face it: some people are just boring. And some people are spammers. Neither kind needs/deserves to be followed back. Also, if you are famous and are followed by thousands of people, a follow-back can be nice, and it makes your followers feel good about themselves—but it is in no way required. Especially now that Twitter and the various 3rd-party apps can display @replies from anywhere in the Twitterverse, instead of just from your pool of followers.
- Strike a balance.
If you don’t follow anyone, you are missing out on the real Twitter experience. If you follow too many more people than follow you, you look like a spammer. Everyone hates a spammer.
Special suggestions for those who want to use Twitter for promotion/marketing/feedback/etc.:
- No one likes a spammer. The best way to use Twitter for self-promotion is by integrating yourself into the community.
- Post interesting, useful updates.
- Reply to followers, and engage others in dialogue instead of simply blasting your own info all the time.
- Use your network with care, following only those who really look like they are interested in your product/company/particular brand of self-promotion, and sticking as closely as possible to your immediate network as you expand your reach.
I repeat: NO ONE LIKES A SPAMMER.
