

How to Tweet - DanielBMarkham
http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/11/how-to-tweet.php

======
edw519
Being a natural optimizer, maximizing the value I get out of Twitter (and
anything else) is an ongoing process. That process obviously needs tweaking if
it made me unfollow @danielbmarkham. Daniel, you're one of my favorite
writers, both here at HN and on your blog. You always find a way to get me
thinking, no matter what you write about. Consider yourself re-followed.

I know that you and I, along with many others, have tried to do our part (with
mixed results) elevating the quality of discourse here at HN. Now its up to
many of us to continue that effort in under 140 characters. Based on my feed,
it seems like that's always a work in process.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm going to take a bit of a contrary position, Ed.

Do I really want to live in a world where great thoughts and works of
literature are squashed into 140 characters? Nope. God, I hope not.

I love being brief, pithy, and terse, but I fear that we look at Twitter as an
optimization problem for one metric when in fact it is a completely different
medium with it's own strengths and weaknesses. I am not trying to optimize
Twitter for saying the same kinds of things I would say on HN. This would be
like picking up a kazoo and trying to optimize it for Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony. I am trying to optimize Twitter for exploring those unique types of
things that Twitter is good at expressing. Different instruments and mediums
excel at different things.

In either case, we're all probably going to have to figure this out as we go
along. :) I imagine there is no _correct_ answer to "What's the best way to
use Twitter?"

~~~
RockyMcNuts
Do I want to live in a world where love, tragedy, life are squashed into the
17 _on_ of a haiku, or the 14 verses of a sonnet?

not disagreeing with you... if you don't want to write or read haiku or sonnet
or Twitter, that's cool.

But a good Twitter feed has a certain value, which would not be the same if
tweets were unlimited in length.

The constraints, conventions, and formalisms are inherent to any artistic
medium.

Twitter is more of an alert/pointer/headline feed, not necessarily a feed of
entire opuses (opi?).

Although there are some good haiku and (ultra)short story feeds LOL.

------
conradev
> To me, Twitter is a bunch of people all standing in a room all talking to
> themselves, hoping to start a conversation.

Best description I have heard to date.

------
justinhj
The nice thing about Twitter is that it is what you make it. You can choose
the style of Tweeter to follow and you can Tweet how you like.

Incidentally it's amusing/interesting that the comment policy on the blog is
the opposite to what he expects from Tweeters.

"if all you have to offer is general platitudes like how happy you are to have
found my site and what a wonderful place it is, I will delete your comment and
report your comment as spam"

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I'm not sure I said the opposite in the article. Could you point that out?

I thought I said "..We don't have to agree on stuff like politics, religion,
life, the universe, or any of that. Hell, I would like it a lot better if we
didn't! When I tweet something and we start up a little sidebar conversation,
I get the feeling I am part of a larger community. That's what keeps me using
Twitter..."

In either case, the point of the article was that different communication
mediums are useful for different things.

Sorry -- I hope I don't sound defensive. I just was a bit confused that you
took away that I wanted people to agree with on Twitter. Far from it! I am
looking for office mates. Who wants a bunch of office mates that all agree on
stuff? Sounds pretty boring to me.

At the end of the day, yes, Twitter is what you make it. It's really cool to
see how different folks use it in completely different ways.

~~~
LukeShu
It's not that you want people to agree on Twitter, it's that you expect
Twitter to be "chit-chat. Small talk."

Where your comment policy is basically "If it doesn't add value, don't say
it".

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Cool. Thanks for that clarification.

What I _meant_ to say was that if you are a link spammer and are only there to
post comments like "I love this blog! You are awesome! Please buy more
designer handbags at this site XXX" then your comment will be deleted.

Thanks for helping out! I'll fix the wording.

~~~
TylerE
Those are just spambots, not actual people.

