Anyone twitter?

I was on twitter, but I found it to be down quite often. That, and it really didn't serve me any purpose - most of my close friends are on facebook and can see my facebook status.

Interesting concept though.

I have twitter, too! I use the same username as this one, also.

I still don't understand what the hell twitter does. I mean I've read about it, but I still don't get it. Is it like MSN messenger, but with a smaller text field where you just send messages like "I'm pooping" "A dog looked at me" "It's raining"? I don't get it.

For me who has problems writing stuff with "content" once a week, and long texts, it's just fun.

Others say it's counter to "information overload". Maybe you let that count. "microblogging"

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Original post by boolean I still don't understand what the hell twitter does. I mean I've read about it, but I still don't get it. Is it like MSN messenger, but with a smaller text field where you just send messages like "I'm pooping" ...

Yes, but now your friends can know this too!

NO, I DON'T FUCKING TWITTER.

I just try not to have friends so I don't have to keep up with these stupid programs. Sometimes I go on Trillian (AIM/MSN/YIM/ICQ), but I mostly talk to people, especially my girlfriend, through PMs on my site's forum. Yup, I'm that lame.

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Original post by Spodi I just try not to have friends so I don't have to keep up with these stupid programs. Sometimes I go on Trillian (AIM/MSN/YIM/ICQ), but I mostly talk to people, especially my girlfriend, through PMs on my site's forum. Yup, I'm that lame.

Wait, you're that lame and you have a girlfriend? How the...?!

I guess I should clarify myself. I do see twitter being kind of neat. It did let me keep track of what some of my other friends (who are also working in the same city) are working on throughout the day.

Beats me. I just accept it and hope she never thinks the same. Its like when you know your code has a bug, but it looks like it runs fine. Don't touch it and hope everything continues to work.

@OP
I use http://identi.ca/

Down with Twitter. Down with Downtime.

=)

That, and it is like persistent IM when your microblog friend list is small.

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Original post by Moe Quote: Original post by Spodi I just try not to have friends so I don't have to keep up with these stupid programs. Sometimes I go on Trillian (AIM/MSN/YIM/ICQ), but I mostly talk to people, especially my girlfriend, through PMs on my site's forum. Yup, I'm that lame. Wait, you're that lame and you have a girlfriend? How the...?!

I feel slighted as well. Of course, I'm not actively looking after my last relationship collapsed.

I'm new to this whole twitter thing. Infact I registered an account just to fiddle with some twitter iPhone apps.

I have one point of confusion: When you @reply someone, how does twitter know which post in particular you're replying to? Does twitter assume you're replying to that persons most recent post?

oh ... and this is me on twitter

I am at twitter.com/jpetrie.

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I have one point of confusion: When you @reply someone, how does twitter know which post in particular you're replying to? Does twitter assume you're replying to that persons most recent post?

It doesn't know at all, as far as I can tell. Having @user in the text is simply contextual information; Twitter will ensure that a post containing @yourname shows up in your feed regardless of whether or not you're following the user who says it... but that's it. It's not designed to have context because you're not "supposed" to reply to past posts, just new ones.

See, the thing I don’t get is, who cares? Does anyone actually read the things people post? I can’t understand how someone could read with rapt attention “I think its going to rain – it’s raining – it rained – they say it might rain again”. I can’t wrap my head around who gives a crap what people are doing on a second by second basis of the day. If I rung my friends up and went:

*Ring* “Bob, it’s Boolean, I’m going to the shops”
Bob – “ok...why are you telling me?”
Me- “Oh, I just thought you would want to know” *click*

*Ring* “Bob, it’s Boolean, I’m back from the shops”
Bob – “ok...?” *click*

*Ring* “Bob, it’s Boolean, I’m going to the shops again, I forgot milk”
Bob – “...please stop calling” *click*

*Ring* “Bob, it’s Boolean, I’m going to watch some TV now”
Bob – “STOP CALLING ME ASSHOLE!!!”. *SLAM*

This is my impression of twitter. I see everyone using it and dang it, there must be something about it that interests everyone, but I just cannot fathom how in any way it’s interesting to anyone. Has the world become so close because of advances in technology that we now need 24 hour reports on everything our friends are doing? At what point did we panic and think "OH GOSH, is Jim watching TV or reading a book? OH GOD I MUST KNOW!".

Perhaps everyone uses twitter under the impression that while they couldn't give one billionth a shit what anyone else’s twitter says, they are sure everyone is reading theirs? I don’t know.

I just don’t get it.

I, for one, don't know anyone who's on this. *shrug* Having read through one of the twitter pages on this page (I won't say whose it was) yeah I'm pretty glad that I don't.

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See, the thing I don’t get is, who cares? Does anyone actually read the things people post? I can’t understand how someone could read with rapt attention “I think its going to rain – it’s raining – it rained – they say it might rain again”. I can’t wrap my head around who gives a crap what people are doing on a second by second basis of the day. If I rung my friends up and went:

I had the same initial impression. I'm still not entirely convinced it's worthwhile, but I do enjoy making quick comments about whatever I'm working on, it's especially nice when there's nobody around for me to bitch at in person.

I do think there's a high volume of MySpace-esque drivel on Twitter, which is shame when you consider how much damned bandwidth is being consumed by it -- they can barely stay afloat. I try to keep my posts relatively on-topic (the topic being 'technical crap I'm doing') as much as I can, and prefer to only follow people who post similarly technical stuff or are good friends who I'd actually listen to in person. In particular, people who post too much get the boot from my follower list. I'm really pikcy about who I keep on there.

I also refuse to give in to the lingo and call the posts 'tweets.'

You can follow my Twitter feed at twitter.com/americanheretic. I prefer tweeting over blogging, but I haven't always felt that way. I originally was unimpressed with Twitter, thinking Twitter was just a pointless medium for meaningless minutiae. I was wrong.

You can think of Twitter as your own private chat room that you can populate with users you select. The character limit keeps messages short and concise. These messages don't have to be status updates. These messages can simply be quick thoughts or links you want to share.

If you don't think you know anyone that uses Twitter, and you have a LinkedIn profile with a good number of connections, export your LinkedIn connections to an Outlook CSV and import them with Twitter's web tool. The tool will scan the e-mail addresses for attached Twitter accounts. I recently did this and found a lot more people, who I know, using Twitter than I previously thought. You can use any address book in CSV format, but I don't keep any contacts in Outlook anymore.

The default input behavior is the equivalent of mass messaging, but you also have the option to reply to specific users publicly and privately. For example:

• @americanheretic : Indicates a reply to me.
• d americanheretic : Sends a direct (private) message to me.

Twitter also proved extremely valuable during emergencies, including the October 2007 California wildfires. Personally, I was actively following KPBS and The San Diego Union-Tribune's Twitter feeds, as well as KPBS' custom Google Maps fire map, at the time. I changed my mind about Twitter when the fires were less than a couple miles from home. There's more information about Twitter as a "social justice tool" in Wikipedia.

New Scientist magazine even published an article about Emergency 2.0 and how social media tools are more effective at disseminating news and information than traditional media, particularly during a crisis when the talking heads are still more interested in hearing their own voices or seeing their own faces.

For businesses and even amateur game-development teams, Twitter can be useful as a news ticker. Twitter can be integrated with a variety of devices, applications, blogs, and even Facebook. I use Twhirl as my desktop Twitter client, had a Twitter widget on my Facebook profile, and have a Twitter widget on my blog. Every Twitter "channel" has a unique RSS feed that you can use for various purposes, too. (By the way, Twhirl also works with identi.ca, Friendfeed, and Seesmic.)

I tweet.

I probably would, but I honestly don't know enough people who use this. Especially when compared to the number of people I know who use Facebook status.

I got one but I don't even know what it's for really...