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Just about any story about Twitter mixes people who don't get it and then people who rave about it. Perhaps it's just a different way of getting news. If there

Just about any story about Twitter mixes people who don't get it and then people who rave about it. Perhaps it's just a different way of getting news. If there's a topic that is interesting, it's much easier to find a niche subreddit to follow or go straight to the source. I don't know what experts or subject areas avoids the inevitable "now let's show how clever we are", "share our personal life incessantly", or "argue with some Internet idiot over something really dumb with 140 characters". If one of those experts has something really interesting to say, it's not the Tweet, it's a blog post, it's a site, etc that will bubble up through other sources already curated and Twitter can be skipped. Again, it's very possible there are specific subjects where it's great, but personally have yet to find them. I've never seen a Tweet that had value by itself and the site adds nothing of value to my Internet experience. I hate it when people link to tweets because you wonder what can really be said in that medium which isn't just some witty retort. Do people just consume the net differently?

colmvp 10y ago
I think of Twitter as a personal subreddit where only people I care about submit the links or self.submissions. Subreddits are fine but they are also sometimes fraught with a subreddit specific bias that might be seriously off-putting.
ako 10y ago
I see Twitter mostly as the backend to apps like flipboard. It will go through my Twitter timeline and determine what is worth reading.
jpindar 10y ago
To make the most out of Twitter, you do have to choose who to follow, and who to unfollow. Some people either don't understand that or can't be bothered.
Chathamization 10y ago
It really depends on what you're looking for. For instance, twitter can be good for niche areas. There's no subreddit for local politics in most places; even places that have one don't have one that's very active (look at the NYC politics subreddit). But it's easy to follow a few local reporters, politicians, and activists on Twitter to get a sense of what's happening. It's also quite useful for up to date information. If I'm trying to find updates about what's happening at an even - especially if I'm trying to find information from multiple sources - Twitter is often the best venue. If I'm trying to find a summary of what happened days later, yeah, a blog post or article would probably be better. Of course, you can emulate some of the functionality of what Twitter does on other platforms. But the same can be said for most of the web. Blogs are a good example - I'd argue that it'd be much easier to use a personal web page from 1994 to emulate what a blog does than it would be to use a blog to emulate what Twitter does.

colmvp 10y ago

I think of Twitter as a personal subreddit where only people I care about submit the links or self.submissions. Subreddits are fine but they are also sometimes fraught with a subreddit specific bias that might be seriously off-putting.

ako 10y ago

I see Twitter mostly as the backend to apps like flipboard. It will go through my Twitter timeline and determine what is worth reading.

jpindar 10y ago

To make the most out of Twitter, you do have to choose who to follow, and who to unfollow. Some people either don't understand that or can't be bothered.

Chathamization 10y ago

It really depends on what you're looking for. For instance, twitter can be good for niche areas. There's no subreddit for local politics in most places; even places that have one don't have one that's very active (look at the NYC politics subreddit). But it's easy to follow a few local reporters, politicians, and activists on Twitter to get a sense of what's happening. It's also quite useful for up to date information. If I'm trying to find updates about what's happening at an even - especially if I'm trying to find information from multiple sources - Twitter is often the best venue. If I'm trying to find a summary of what happened days later, yeah, a blog post or article would probably be better. Of course, you can emulate some of the functionality of what Twitter does on other platforms. But the same can be said for most of the web. Blogs are a good example - I'd argue that it'd be much easier to use a personal web page from 1994 to emulate what a blog does than it would be to use a blog to emulate what Twitter does.