Do you use Twitter?
Twitter is a service which really baffles me. It is an absolute killer idea, but I am still astounded by the volume of traffic it has. I find it very useful for a number of things. It can automate some tasks, you can keep a personal log of things you've done, you can use it to manage yourself.
I'm also using it to communicate with my readers at my new blog, and it can be used really well for websites in general, as a way to keep in touch with readers even when they're off-site.
It is also an excellent tool for companies to keep in contact with customers, to answer support questions for example or notify customers of new products, changes or even outages which you may not be able to communicate using the company website.
In fact, Twitter is used by many companies for exactly that purpose. And if the company employs a dedicated Twitter staff, you will usually receive responses to questions or support requests faster than on the website or via email.
However, I really, really don't care what people are doing right now. The people who I do care about are very limited, I would follow about 3 Twitter users, even then I wouldn't read all the tweets. Twitter can be cool if you find something funny or interesting on the net, you can send the link to your friends without needing to create an email. However, I really don't care when someone gets up, when they brush their teeth.
Call me anti-social, but I just can't see the "purpose" behind all this. In fact, following a lot of people would clog up my twitter clients, so I would miss a lot of valuable stuff. I am not criticizing you guys who follow hundreds of people, I completely understand that we are different. Regardless, Twitter is an awesome idea and a well-implemented service. So do you like Twitter? What do you use it for?
In the Netherlands almost nobody uses twitter, most people think it’s useless and for a long time I tought about it the same way. We have one big social network website which is http://www.hyves.nl which is the dutch facebook/myspace with a buzz function which is similar as tweeting which might be a reason why we don’t feel the need to use twitter.
Nevertheless I have twitter for a while, but am really using it since yesterday. I like it as one big rss feed, but am not seeking to follow hundreds of people. I am only following 14 at the moment and I feel it ‘s already overloaded. I am also tweeting a bit, but because nobody reads it anyway I don’t know for how long I will do this.
For marketing though, I think it’s brilliant. It’s seems to be so much easier to go viral with twitter then without.
That’s how I think about twitter :-P
I use it to follow friends and interesting people/artists/websites, but I’m not an addict. When I tweet, it’s usually about what I’m doing or replying to other people. I don’t like it so much. Facebook is more towards what I like.
i use twitter but i’m still not sure how i feel about it… my one nagging complaint right now is that twitter occasionally eats tweets – by which i mean i the tweet is there one moment, and may eve get responses, and then the next moment it’s gone for no good reason…
No. I don’t use Twitter and have yet to be convinced it is of any value at all to anyone.
i dont use it, nor i read what ppl write.
i can “see” why some would think it’s “cool”
but i really think it’s silly. (in an understatement )
i think this sums it up real good
http://www.joyengine.com/misc/spread-the-love/
Don’t use it.
Many people are lonely, looking for connections with others to validate their existence and self-perceived importance in our big universe . [Mostly] mindless twittering serves that purpose.
I can’t remember who said this but it was a tech columnist from one of the larger print magazines:
“Tweet this: nobody gives a crap what you are doing right now!”
and that about sums up how I feel about Twitter.
It’s an update service that allows you to interact with it however you wish (external client, website, SMS).
You only follow people / services who you are interested in getting updates from. Yes, there are some people who are posting about what their eating for breakfast, but if that bothers you, then don’t follow.
There are plenty of great ways to use the service besides the obvious social aspect of it. Since it has a pretty open API there are many services that will interface with twitter. This means that you can get SMS updates (Service > Twitter > Mobile Phone) even though the service in question may not directly support SMS.
Tracking your packages, getting news updates, todo lists, Digg, etc. I find a lot of usefulness out of the service other than keeping in touch with friends / clients. Using Tweetdeck (a Twitter client running in Adobe AIR) I can also keep things organized so that my news and status updates do not flow with the the social based updates.
I’m in the US, so a lot of my usage may not really be applicable to other countries, but I find that it’s something that I use throughout the course of the day.
I didn’t read your article. It was longer than 140 characters. Could you please summarize?
I have tried more than once to understand what the big deal is about Twitter. I find it monotonous and don’t see what the appeal is. It makes me feel really old to say, “I don’t get” Twitter, but I don’t get it. At all.
I used to use it, not anymore. It may be fun to communicate and start quick conversations with many at the same time but not much more.
Some my friends do have Livejournals, some friends and family have Vkontakte accounts (vkontakte.ru, Russian LinkedIn), no one (AFAIK) have Twitter, and may be somebody have Facebook accounts, but only a few.
So, I’m socialized on LJ and Vkontakte, and that’s enough for me. I would like to join a software forum, tough.
Sorry for duplicates, I got 404 a couple of times trying to post comment.
Don’t use it. Tried it, but walked away.
I’m not interested in going out of my way to find out what strangers are doing “right now.” The few people who I care about enough to want to know what they’re doing are people I see at least every day, if not every minute or so.
My interest in the web is as a source of content. There’s precious little of that on Twitter. It’s what someone has to say that interests me, not what they’re doing from minute to minute.
I use digsbys twitter integration to view tweets by other people, that just makes it easier then going to the site itself. I also hate that some of my friends tweet, when they wake up or going to work EVERYDAY! I like the fact that tweets can be a little bit more personal then other outlets. I’m not looking for it to be a RSS feed for posts. In some cases it should have exclusive content.
I use twitter as an addon to my blog or to share current impressions from a film or book. I also text away personal staff – just because it feels good
Twitter is great if you love spam and constantly being subject to phishing attacks.
The coolness of twitter that we hear all the technorati (and now the celebs) talk about only works because they are the technorati. They automatically have thousands of followers just because people know them. So, for them, it’s great to be able to throw any comment or question and get instant feedback. When I, on the other hand, post something on Twitter, it goes out into the ether to never be read by anyone. Sure, I could spend months working very hard to build up a following that can tell me the best place to eat when I visit another city. But, isn’t Google good enough for that?
Don’t feel old or out of it just because you don’t get Twitter. There’s really nothing to get.
what’s twitter?
Twitter? it is addictive, but don’t take that line: “What are you doing now?” as gospel.
Try to follow people in bulk, and interesting stuff will happen. Expertise exchange, resource exchange, finding stuff, chatting, and socializing are all stuff you can do.
But hey, let the experts talk:
How to be a better tweeter on Webware.com: http://is.gd/r8Pq
10 things you can tweet about on Twitter on OnlineJournalismBlog.com: http://is.gd/jMqW
Ok, so it’s not just me then :) Twitter is great for marketing, and as Grey pointed out, it is extremely useful for integraton with other services.
I also don’t get why knowing when someone took a crap (who I don’t even know) is useful or at least fun. People who I care that much about are very limited, and I have more or less daily personal interaction (WHAT is that?) with them.
NO! please no!
I don’t see the extra value. Microblogging?
I have been using Twitter for about a month now. I only follow a few people, mostly other user group officers, otherwise I can not read all that comes in.
It is useful for getting quick input from those other user group officers, if they happen to be actively using Twitter.
All in all, I don’t think I will keep up with it too long.
I just twit when I’m too lazy to write a blog
I don’t use it, unless I found I need it.
I just did a post on this very subject. I may lose some friends, but I
just can’t get into this. Unlike this post, I got a lot of negative feedback.
Social networking can waste away days with nothing much to show for
it.
no, I’m not using it.
I think it is very shallow to think all these people care about what you do every minute. Then they want their privacy,:) which is it. Very insecure.