
Ask HN: Do You Twitter? - gibsonf1
I'm curious to know the twitter names of other Hacker News readers to add to my following list.  I've just started "twittering" recently, and it seems to have potential.  Mine is at: http://twitter.com/gibsonf1
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Zev
I'm more interested in knowing if anyone _doesn't_ have a twitter (and if so,
why not)

also, <http://twitter.com/zadr> is mine if anyone's remotely interested.

~~~
vyrotek
I dont twitter because I dont care what other people are doing. And so I
return the favor by assuming other people dont care about what Im doing.

~~~
larrywright
I had the same feeling, initially. Here's what I've found though: there are
really two kinds of relationships on Twitter. Allow me to elaborate.

On one end of the spectrum, I follow people who have similar interests as me
(Ruby, Rails, Clojure, Arduino, Macs, etc). Lots of them are well-known in
their various niche communities. Yes, you do get some degree of "drinking
coffe" and "walking the dog" type of notifications, but a lot more "hey, this
piece of software is cool", and "I just released this new library" messages.
The signal to noise ratio is really pretty good, assuming you are choosy about
who you follow. If you follow interesting people, they will help you find
interesting things. I wrote about this a little bit, particularly about how I
read RSS feeds much less now because of Twitter:
[http://larrywright.me/blog/articles/209-the-coming-
decline-o...](http://larrywright.me/blog/articles/209-the-coming-decline-of-
rss-and-atom)

On the other end of the spectrum, I do follow people that I know personally,
or that live in the same town (it's small). What I get from these people is
different. It's more akin to meeting down at the local coffee shop and
catching up. There's value in this as well.

It's very easy to dismiss Twitter unless you look closely. You're right, in a
sense: I don't care what a random person is doing right now. But that's not
really what Twitter is about, and until you use it for a bit, that's hard to
understand.

If you want to try it, find some people whose blogs you enjoy reading, and
follow them for a bit on Twitter. I think you'll be surprised at what you
find.

If you do, you can find me at <http://twitter.com/larrywright>

~~~
biohacker42
But isn't the constant dribbling of information distracting? Wouldn't you be
able to find the same valuable information, when you need it, by googleing?

~~~
petercooper
Isn't the constant dribbling of e-mail distracting? No, because I can go check
it when I want to.

Twitter does, however, provide me with insights into the people I know
(business or otherwise) and keeps me on the edge with developments in several
communities I'm involved with. For example, I'm a Ruby guy, and so I follow a
lot of Rubyists.. you can bet I'm pretty clued in to brand new Ruby libraries,
etc, as they come out (or even just in a very quiet personal beta).

Explaining Twitter is next to impossible. Unless you've been using it in anger
for a few months, you don't have a clue what it is, but then suddenly.. one
day you do.

~~~
neilc
_Isn't the constant dribbling of e-mail distracting?_

Yes, it is. There's a reason why Knuth answers regular mail as a batch process
(once every few months), for example. A common productivity tip is to limit
yourself to checking email only a few times a day. The productivity harm
caused be frequent context switching has been well-documented, especially if
you're doing something context-intensive like programming.

~~~
petercooper
_Yes, it is._

But you don't _have_ to deal with e-mail as a dribble, as you say. I deal with
e-mail as a batch process, just several times a day instead of once every few
months. Ditto for Twitter and the like.

------
davidw
At first twitter just seemed useless, but then I figured out what it's good
for: "spamming" people. I signed up for rss feeds of various search terms I'm
interested in, and when something goes by, zing, off goes an URL. I don't
think this makes for very interesting reading, but in any case, I'm here:

<http://twitter.com/davidnwelton>

------
IsaacSchlueter
Can't we just put our twitter URLs in our profiles?

~~~
wesley
If only links in profiles would be clickable.. (Lazy)

~~~
rayvega
Apparently, they can be. Check out this user's profile:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstejerean>

~~~
ejs
This is only because the links where put there before pg changed the rules to
not allow them... it is just an artifact of a profile that has not been
changed recently.

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abstractbill
I _think_ I do. Honestly can't remember! I believe I set up an account and had
something else push some kind of status update to it... perhaps even comments
like these... through FriendFeed maybe?

So, uh, who is working on an online service to keep track of all the online
services I use? ;-)

Edit: Found it - <http://twitter.com/billmoorier>

~~~
jwb119
I am! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480128>

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dhess
I'm using Twitter to keep a record of interesting URLs, along with a couple of
hashtags and a brief description. I've been trying this with Delicious for the
first time, too, but so far I prefer Twitter, probably because more people use
it, and it's easier for my friends to peruse.

It's just links, mostly to technical-, math- or education-related things. I
try to keep the off-topic stuff to a minimum (I think there are maybe 4 or 5
tweets total out of a few hundred that don't follow the formula.)

<http://twitter.com/dhess>

I do have a couple of concerns about using Twitter for this purpose:

* according to the Twitter API docs, they only keep 3200 tweets "online" at a time for any given account.

* the dependency on the TinyURL service.

* Twitter has historically spotty reliability.

So I'm working on an archiving solution, which I hope to make available soon.
If you're the hacker type, it might appeal to you, too. I'll give a pointer to
it on my Twitter feed when it's ready for testing.

------
azharcs
<http://twitter.com/azharcs> I mostly used to tweet content i liked from HN,
maybe with more HN users following, i will have to stop doing that :)

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wheels
I was slow warming to twitter, but really I've found that there's a pretty
huge overlap between my LinkedIn contacts and my Twitter followers. It's
largely my online-geek-entrepreneur persona and it's a nice way of letting
other folks in the world keep tabs on what stuff we've got coming down the
pipe and doing the same for other startups / geeks.

Available in full flavor and low fat:

<http://twitter.com/scotchi>

<http://twitter.com/directededge>

------
billroberts
The problem I find with it is that if you follow more than a handful of active
tweeters, then there are too many tweets to read in a reasonable amount of
time. That said, I find I get useful information from people with similar
(work-related) interests to mine, and a way to 'get to know' people, which can
lead to more in-depth conversations when you have something you want to
converse about. (twitter.com/billroberts)

------
dylanz
I refuse. It's one of those things that comes along that I know I don't need
(time sink), and stick to my guns and ignore it.

Didn't have a Facebook profile for the longest time... then started working
with a client who wanted to build a Facebook application. Created a profile,
and it snowballed from there :/

~~~
wesley
Can I hire you to build a twitter app? :)

------
evanjacobs
<http://twitter.com/evanjacobs>

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maximumwage
I'm not on Twitter, but I enjoy following the feeds of top entrepreneurs and
investors. Here are a few good lists and rankings:
<http://www.bigwinner.org/twitter-leaders/>
[http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/2008/12/c-level-
twe...](http://buzzmarketingfortech.blogspot.com/2008/12/c-level-
tweeters.html) <http://twittercounter.com/pages/100>
<http://twitterholic.com/>

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okeumeni
I just started twitter as well, though I’m not very active I created one for
one of our products <http://twitter.com/errorkey>.

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enra
Still trying, but with Twirssi, I found myself using twitter more frequently.
me: <http://twitter.com/karrisaarinen>

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lsemel
I'm at <http://twitter.com/semel>, I'm also cofounder of the 'Oscars for
Twitter': <http://shortyawards.com>. My feeling is that Twitter is what you
make of it. People use it for professional networking, sales, customer
service, keeping in touch with friends, organizing events, letting people know
what they're doing at the moment, or any other number of uses.

------
pskomoroch
<http://twitter.com/peteskomoroch> mostly tweets on python, machine learning,
general data crunching topics.

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newy
<http://twitter.com/euwyn>

give me a shout (or an @, whatever the cool kids call it these days) if you're
in nyc.

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ericwan
<http://twitter.com/ericwan>

don't twitter often, but try to understand its appeal and user dynamics.

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adityakothadiya
Of course I do - <http://twitter.com/adityakothadiya>

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brk
I've been using Twitter in bursts.

<http://twitter.com/NotoriousBRK>

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AndrewHampton
<http://twitter.com/andrewhampton>

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poppinphresh
<http://twitter.com/poppinphresh>

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jwb119
<http://www.twitter.com/jboehmig>

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darreld
<http://www.twitter.com/darreld>

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tomh-
<http://twitter.com/intellicode>

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entelarust
<http://twitter.com/entelarust>

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mikecuesta
<http://twitter.com/mikecuesta>

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BinaryPie
<http://twitter.com/binarypie>

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brandonkm
<http://twitter.com/keithkay>

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danw
<http://twitter.com/iamdanw/>

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ghostz00
<http://twitter.com/greghos>

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jaxn
<http://twitter.com/jaxn>

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joshuarr
Joshuarr - I'm still trying to decide if it's a sink hole or not though.

------
vicaya
No. It's my opinion that people who twitter are either egomaniacs or who have
something to sell. I have much higher respect for people who actually maintain
strictly technical blogs these days.

------
pyroman
<http://twitter.com/greg_allard> I mostly do @ replies, links to my blog
posts, or what beer I'm drinking (microbrews, nothing boring)

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jeffbarr
I am <http://twitter.com/jeffbarr> \- a combination of news about the Amazon
Web Services (70%) and my own stuff (30%).

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sspencer
<http://twitter.com/sm_spencer>

Generally pretty profane and/or nonsensical, but I let the occasional nugget
of wisdom slip out.

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jfornear
Twittering makes me a better person, duh. <http://twitter.com/smujesse>

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abyssknight
<http://twitter.com/abyssknight>

Might I suggest #hn for hashtag categorization?

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flexterra
english / español / "spanglish": <http://twitter.com/gcollazo>

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wesley
<http://twitter.com/improvingtheweb>

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swombat
<http://www.twitter.com/swombat> (duh)

~~~
swombat
Worth adding that my tweets are of course, by far, the most interesting here,
and everyone should follow me right now so that they get the benefit of my
infinite wisdom and mansuetude.

Don't listen to the others! I am the one true prophet.

------
mattmcknight
mattmcknight how's that for branding? however, my twittering is not very
interesting.

~~~
gibsonf1
You look a little young for twittering :) But your latest comment is pretty
good.

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geuis
I'm <http://twitter.com/geuis>

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yan
me: <http://twitter.com/yan_i>

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immad
<http://twitter.com/immad>

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rickharrison
ive been addicted to twitter for a while me: twitter.com/rickharrison

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vincentpants
me: twitter.com/vincentpants

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ucdaz
www.twitter.com/nickleung www.twitter.com/feedbackjar

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ObieJazz
mtinkerhess

