4 ms·

Andreessen Says He’s ‘Free as a Bird’ Since Quitting Twitter

15 points by swamp40 10y ago

jasode 10y ago
>“I think they’ll get by,” he said when asked how his 595,000 followers were taking his silence. Twitter “will be okay too,” he said. To journalist Sarah McBride, the most interesting angle isn't his Twitter silence nor his hiatus. (Lots of celebrities take a break from Twitter.) What's really puzzling was that he deleted all his tweets. Did you ask him about that?
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  I'm very curious about that too. Many famous people have taken breaks from Twitter but to delete every single tweet is an interesting way to go. It's public so I can't see him trying to hide something but why else would you do it? To avoid and further Twitter interaction or something?
  - tw04 10y ago
    Exactly this. It removes the temptation of someone commenting on an old post and then having media contact him to ask what he thinks about someone's opinion of something he said a long time ago. Could someone have archived all his tweets and still bring it up? Sure, but it's far less likely.
    - rebelidealist 10y ago
      His twitter posts are double posted in his Facebook profile. It's a hassle to delete all your online skeletons.
therobot24 10y ago
i'm a 18-30 millennial in tech who has never used twitter, is it really more addicting than reddit, facebook, et al.?
- jamisteven 10y ago
  Nobody I know uses Twitter, I think its a California thing.
  - rconti 10y ago
    As a Californian, nope. I can already see what my friends are doing on Facebook. I try to follow interesting people, but too much of the content is uninteresting or unrelated. I follow some F1 drivers, but most of the time they're tweeting about random crap only their friends care about. And/or I'm getting race spoilers when I can't watch live. Every user is such a firehose of information that it's impossible to get the type of content I want. You also either get WAY too much in volume, or too little. That's aside from their terrible usability problems where promoted tweets and "while you were away" and other such junk clutters your feed. Somehow, a longer, more graphic-intensive Facebook feed (with content on the left and right side as well) is still more information-dense than a "140 character" Twitter feed. How they make such poor use of real estate, I have no idea. IMO Twitter is more for broadcasting/receiving information, often with celebrities or famous people or news organizations, and Facebook is more for interacting with people you already know. But the aforementioned problem of people you follow spending 95% of their time tweeting about their breakfast or unrelated interests, and 5% the type of content you care about, remains. I've really enjoyed using twitter at conferences, though, where you can at least interact with people via hashtags. (why you still cannot follow a hashtag, however, is beyond me).
- laurentdc 10y ago
  Meh, I've had my Twitter account for a day before abandoning it, since nobody I know uses it except for a netadmin who gets alerts through it. I guess it becomes addictive if you start getting thousands of followers and start feeling like some sort of "influencer". Just like Facebook or Instagram for that matter.
- colmvp 10y ago
  Depends on who you ask and your interests. Nearly every journalist/news junkie/policy wonk/social activist I know where I live loves Twitter, largely because you can follow other interesting journalists/writers/professionals and converse with them on Twitter. I've had conversations with pretty notable people on Twitter which would never happen on Reddit (save for IAMA) or Facebook. I'm glad that there's a platform for anonymous users (Reddit) and identified users (Facebook/Twitter). Whenever people trash Twitter, I'm always baffled, because the experience is what you make of it. I can follow interesting people like Snowden, Musk, Gladwell, William Gibson, Degrasse Tyson, Zach Lowe etc. and have endless list of links to browse or interesting thoughts to ponder on... the experience can be far more edifying that either Facebook or Reddit.
vonnik 10y ago
That's too bad. @pmarca had one of the smartest accounts on Twitter. I'll miss reading him.
- vonnik 10y ago
  I can't believe this is getting downvoted. So let me add to it: The thing about @pmarca was that his tastes were eclectic and many of his thoughts were original, so whether he was tweetstorming his opinions to be met with furor, or retweeting other accounts, you had a high density of tweets you'd want to read. There are a lot of spambots and content marketers on Twitter, and he wasn't one of them. So it's a loss to the ecosystem. On the other hand, he got into trouble on Twitter, and as a famous person, he was probably accosted and harrassed by pseudonymous morons, which is a much wider problem Twitter has to address. I personally think that if Twitter tires you out, you're not doing it right: turn off the notifications, allow yourself to interact for 30min out of every 24h and you're golden.
perseusprime11 10y ago
Burnout from excessive tweeting...

15 points by swamp40 10y ago

>“I think they’ll get by,” he said when asked how his 595,000 followers were taking his silence. Twitter “will be okay too,” he said. To journalist Sarah McBride, the most interesting angle isn't his Twitter silence nor his hiatus. (Lots of celebrities take a break from Twitter.) What's really puzzling was that he deleted all his tweets. Did you ask him about that?

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
I'm very curious about that too. Many famous people have taken breaks from Twitter but to delete every single tweet is an interesting way to go. It's public so I can't see him trying to hide something but why else would you do it? To avoid and further Twitter interaction or something?
- tw04 10y ago
  Exactly this. It removes the temptation of someone commenting on an old post and then having media contact him to ask what he thinks about someone's opinion of something he said a long time ago. Could someone have archived all his tweets and still bring it up? Sure, but it's far less likely.
  - rebelidealist 10y ago
    His twitter posts are double posted in his Facebook profile. It's a hassle to delete all your online skeletons.

therobot24 10y ago

i'm a 18-30 millennial in tech who has never used twitter, is it really more addicting than reddit, facebook, et al.?

jamisteven 10y ago
Nobody I know uses Twitter, I think its a California thing.
- rconti 10y ago
  As a Californian, nope. I can already see what my friends are doing on Facebook. I try to follow interesting people, but too much of the content is uninteresting or unrelated. I follow some F1 drivers, but most of the time they're tweeting about random crap only their friends care about. And/or I'm getting race spoilers when I can't watch live. Every user is such a firehose of information that it's impossible to get the type of content I want. You also either get WAY too much in volume, or too little. That's aside from their terrible usability problems where promoted tweets and "while you were away" and other such junk clutters your feed. Somehow, a longer, more graphic-intensive Facebook feed (with content on the left and right side as well) is still more information-dense than a "140 character" Twitter feed. How they make such poor use of real estate, I have no idea. IMO Twitter is more for broadcasting/receiving information, often with celebrities or famous people or news organizations, and Facebook is more for interacting with people you already know. But the aforementioned problem of people you follow spending 95% of their time tweeting about their breakfast or unrelated interests, and 5% the type of content you care about, remains. I've really enjoyed using twitter at conferences, though, where you can at least interact with people via hashtags. (why you still cannot follow a hashtag, however, is beyond me).
laurentdc 10y ago
Meh, I've had my Twitter account for a day before abandoning it, since nobody I know uses it except for a netadmin who gets alerts through it. I guess it becomes addictive if you start getting thousands of followers and start feeling like some sort of "influencer". Just like Facebook or Instagram for that matter.
colmvp 10y ago
Depends on who you ask and your interests. Nearly every journalist/news junkie/policy wonk/social activist I know where I live loves Twitter, largely because you can follow other interesting journalists/writers/professionals and converse with them on Twitter. I've had conversations with pretty notable people on Twitter which would never happen on Reddit (save for IAMA) or Facebook. I'm glad that there's a platform for anonymous users (Reddit) and identified users (Facebook/Twitter). Whenever people trash Twitter, I'm always baffled, because the experience is what you make of it. I can follow interesting people like Snowden, Musk, Gladwell, William Gibson, Degrasse Tyson, Zach Lowe etc. and have endless list of links to browse or interesting thoughts to ponder on... the experience can be far more edifying that either Facebook or Reddit.

vonnik 10y ago

That's too bad. @pmarca had one of the smartest accounts on Twitter. I'll miss reading him.

vonnik 10y ago
I can't believe this is getting downvoted. So let me add to it: The thing about @pmarca was that his tastes were eclectic and many of his thoughts were original, so whether he was tweetstorming his opinions to be met with furor, or retweeting other accounts, you had a high density of tweets you'd want to read. There are a lot of spambots and content marketers on Twitter, and he wasn't one of them. So it's a loss to the ecosystem. On the other hand, he got into trouble on Twitter, and as a famous person, he was probably accosted and harrassed by pseudonymous morons, which is a much wider problem Twitter has to address. I personally think that if Twitter tires you out, you're not doing it right: turn off the notifications, allow yourself to interact for 30min out of every 24h and you're golden.

perseusprime11 10y ago

Burnout from excessive tweeting...