
The reluctant Twitterer's dilemma - raghus
http://www.slate.com/id/2215829/
======
RK
I started a Twitter blog not that long ago. In contrast to something like
Facebook (at present), I can have a public micro-blog and be anonymous if I
want to be. I only tweet about technical stuff I'm working on, rather than
what I ate for dinner or what's on TV, and follow friends on a different
account or via RSS. Mostly my tweets and feedback help keep me motivated
without spending the time I would on a full length blog post (or coming here
for that matter :).

It's interesting to see people filtering for keywords and just automatically
following you if you use those words (surely in an attempt to gain followers).
After the first post where I mentioned Ubuntu, I suddenly had a spike in
followers, but all of them were following thousands of people and have never
tweeted back to me.

~~~
RossM
Twitter's very much like MySpace in the "follow everyone" mindset.
Realistically anyone with more than 100 following is either reciprocating
every follow they get or just being unscrupulous in who they follow. Either
way there's no way that those with 10's or 100's of friends are reading their
timelines.

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RossM
I think Twitter has much more value as a conversational tool and to some
extent (thanks to services such as TwitterFeed) an RSS reader replacement
(social feeds if you will).

I've tried using it as a "microblogging" tool, and to be frank it helped me
realise I was pretty boring. If you have a super-duper interesting life (e.g.
if you're Stephen Fry) then sure, otherwise I feel that it, combined with
search and hashtags, has much more potential for people to discuss things
publically.

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frossie
I was kept awake at night racked in guilt by my refusal to join twitter; but
lo! Slate absolved me and my conscience is light as a feather once again.

But wait! It doesn't look like that dude will absolve me for not being on
Facebook - oh well, I'll just have to learn to live with my moral miasma.

------
ggchappell
This is yet another in a long string of articles that are getting the question
exactly backwards. The _wrong_ question: what do I do with Twitter (or "a
blog" or "e-mail" or ...")? The _right_ question: I have something to say;
what is the best medium to say it in?

Thus, the successful media tap into an unfulfilled need, and meet that need
well.

So, should you use Twitter? Yes, if you have something to accomplish that
Twitter helps you accomplish. Otherwise, no.

(And the _real_ answer to all those hordes of people asking, "I have a blog;
what should I write about?" is "If you have nothing to say, then you don't
need a blog.")

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aptimpropriety
I was really only drawn to twitter following Guy Kawasaki's talk on Jelly
about how important it is for companies to have a twitter account to answer
random inquiries about their products and services.

Other than that, I've been rather reluctant......it seems like a great way to
prevent companies or public figures from writing 'TLDR' posts - but why would
you want to TLDR your own friends?

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behe
I use Twitter because I don't have enough to say that I can adequately express
in a blog. I think Twitter is a fad, but I don't think it's useless. Either
way, good luck finding me on Facebook.

