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It's interesting how different it feels from commenting on HN. The box is so tiny, and you can't edit stuff afterwards. But you also don't have to deal with r
by pg 16y ago
It's interesting how different it feels from commenting on HN. The box is so tiny, and you can't edit stuff afterwards. But you also don't have to deal with replies or worry about getting downvoted if you say something unPC.
I'm still not sure what to use it for, to be honest.
- jacquesm 16y agoThe box on HN already feels tiny! > But you also don't have to deal with replies or worry about getting downvoted if you say something unPC. Or getting banned ;)
- pkaler 16y agoWhat did you have for lunch? Inquiring minds want to know! http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/
- csallen 16y agoYou could keep us updated on... 1) the status of any essays (or RFSes) you're working on 2) startup-related insights and musings you have throughout the day (like the one about editable tweets) 3) links to HN stories or comments you find particularly interesting 4) your sleeping, social, and dietary habits
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- dgallagher 16y agoTentatively awaiting the sequel to "Startups in 13 Sentences"... "Startups in 140 Characters"
- pg 16y agoGood idea: http://twitter.com/paulg/status/22316438109 http://twitter.com/paulg/status/22316438109
- olalonde 16y agoI'd be interested to hear about YC companies: their status, progress, problems, etc.
- brlewis 16y agoConnect it to your FriendFeed account. You can edit FriendFeed posts afterward, and aren't as length-limited. Just check a box to cc twitter when posting to FriendFeed.
- michael_nielsen 16y agoA rule that is obvious, but which most people on Twitter don't follow, is that it's best to share information that is simultaneously (a) interesting and (b) not already widely shared by others. Most people aim either for (a) or for (b), but not for both. csallen's suggestions elsewhere in this thread are useful, as with one exception they fulfill both (a) and (b). This rule can be tipped upside down: it's best to follow people whose tweets mostly fulfill both these criteria. This rules out a very large number of people. It's amazing how many people fill their tweetstream with the news of the day from TechCrunch (or HN). It may be interesting, but it's already widely shared. Personally, I find twitter most useful as a highly tailored source of links. That makes it sound similar to news sites such as HN, but the experience is different because you choose which people to follow. For instance, I get a lot out of following @NicholasGruen, who ran the Australian Government's Gov2.0 taskforce, @rjlipton, a leading theoretical computer scientist whose blog was the main clearinghouse in the scrutiny of the recent claimed proof the P is not equal to NP, @gnat of O'Reilly Media for an eclectic collection of tech-related links that for the most part fall outside the purview of the standard sources (TechCrunch etc), etc. Of course, those particular sources are just ones I find interesting, and they may not interest you. The point is that if you choose people whose tweet streams match your informational needs, Twitter can be very valuable.
- igravious 16y agoAllow me to express a contrarian viewpoint. I get the feeling that this information gathering strategy leads to an amplified echo-chamber effect. You mostly only find out about stuff you already have an interest in and rarely stray from your comfort zone. Even coming to HN already limits your horizon to certain types of narratives and _also_ guarantees a limited response to those narratives because certain ways of responding to events are down-modded. Added to the above effect is the pervasive misplaced hero worship and tech fanboyism that is formed based purely on peer pressure and not on merit. IMHO , IANAL , posted in good faith , blah blah blah :)
- michael_nielsen 16y agoIn disagreeing with the rule I stated, you're advocating reading tweets which are either (a) uninteresting, or (b) contain only information already widely shared. Are you really advocating that? (And if so, which part?) I agree with you about the echo chamber. But it's virtually impossible to live inside an echo chamber when you follow people who share mostly information that is not widely held. By definition, that means those people aren't merely echoing the crowd, and this will take you away from people with me-too tweets about iPhone antenna issues (or whatever the news of the hour is).
- avibryant 16y agoThe great thing about the box being so tiny is that expectations are correspondingly low. To write an essay or even a blog post, you need to think through an issue in a fair amount of depth. Among other things, Twitter is for those half-formed thoughts or opinions that, given infinite time, you might one day write an essay about, but in real life they get dropped on the floor and never shared. It's also a surprisingly effective place to solicit feedback, advice, or information (or get those unsolicited). For example, I don't know if you check your replies, but several Twitter engineers responded to your offhand comment about tweets being immutable.
- chmike 16y agoJust trying out tweeter. My first impression is that Signal to noise ratio seems so low... It feels like a waste of time or a productivity drain.
- varjag 16y agoIt's hard to waste much time on 140 characters though.
- joelg87 16y agoI'd disagree with that: I often find Twitter the best way to spend 30 minutes when I have a spare 5 minutes :)
- jacoblyles 16y agoIt's easy. You just waste it 140 characters at a time.
- jl 16y agoYou could do some tweets about your amazing, beautiful and talented wife.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kyro 16y agoHe'll tell you he can't do that in only under 140 characters!
- jrockway 16y agoHow much time do you spend being worried about getting downvoted on HN? :)
- pg 16y agoI don't worry in the sense of caring about karma points, but I do have to think constantly about it. A lot of HN users get excited at the idea of contradicting me. So when I make comments I have to be careful not to leave any room for (innocent or willful) misinterpretation, or it will often breed some long and meretricious counterargument to something I didn't say. Which then gets upvoted while my original comment is downvoted, which gives people the impression that I actually did say whatever strawman is being attributed to me. It's a weird problem. Person B's reply can change the apparent meaning of what person A writes. And the weirder thing is, this happens dynamically. If I take the trouble to reply quickly to the bogus counterargument, the pattern of the voting is usually the opposite, and the apparent meaning of what I said reverts to what I meant. But that is a huge time suck. I've often wondered if there is some way to fix the design of comment threads to mitigate this, but I haven't found any answers yet, except not displaying points.
- lionhearted 16y ago> I'm still not sure what to use it for, to be honest. I was in the same boat for a while, I'm just starting to get into the swing of it. You need to have some people you're mutually following that you respect and then it's a way to quickly send links and short ideas back and forth. It's a chicken and the egg problem for most people, but you should be able to get a pretty good crew mutually following you easily.
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoI've found my writing, particularly on email, has gotten a lot more terse since I started tweeting. Probably a good thing.
- DanielRibeiro 16y agoI am glad Avi helped you figure out a good name. About editing: I think you can get away with deleting the tweet and reposting it. Not sure you can remove it entirely, as people can retweet you or favorite your tweet if you are not fast enough.
- shadowsun7 16y agoIt's also interesting how one of your first tweets was that you made a mistake and you wanted to edit your tweet. I get that all the time, and I wish Twitter included an 'edit within the first 60 secs' feature.
- _delirium 16y agoYou can delete tweets, and it seems not that uncommon to quickly delete an erroneous tweet and replace it with a fixed version. This is mildly frowned on, because some people's clients will poll before you manage to delete/replace, and then they'll get notified twice if they have some sort of "buzz my phone on tweet" kind of setup. (I think that setup is getting less common, though.)
- subbu 16y agoStartups in 137 chars: Make something someone specific needs, launch fast, let users show you what to change, change it, repeat last two. More like these please.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoThere seem to be at least four distinct uses of Twitter I can make out, though I'm relatively new to it as well. 1. Random unimportant things you're doing or thinking during the day. Only your parents care, don't do this. If you must, get a separate Twitter account for it. Don't sabotage your primary public account's signal:noise ratio. 2. Carrying on twit conversations with people you follow/your followers. For the sake of your tens of thousands of other followers, please eschew the small talk and try to make it interesting to eavesdrop on. 3. Retweets of relatively high-value content from people you follow. Could be a link to a great essay/article/paper/breaking news, or an announcement, that you're helping circulate. This is all good. 4. High value original content of your own. Links to new essays or YC announcements, or condensed wisdom, etc. Also all good. Anyone see any categories I missed?
- lucisferre 16y agoI use it to communicate with other software devs pretty regularly. It gives me quick instant access to experts in different areas. It has been most useful for me in that way.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoI think that falls under doing #2 the right way - interesting on-topic discussions of potential value to your followers, not just for the content but also for referring them to other twitterers they may want to follow.
- bootload 16y ago"... you also don't have to deal with replies or worry about getting downvoted ..." downvoted you will get - saying something unPC on twitter is like singing the Blues in a Country & Western bar without the mesh to protect you. Twitter really is the trolls natural habitat.
- huherto 16y ago"if you say something unPC" or if you say something unPG ;-)
- bhc3 16y agoYou write amazing blog posts, with great points of view (e.g. recent Yahoo post). One thing I've heard, and it strikes me as true, is that the best people on twitter are great writers. Why? When you write a post, you have a perspective, a point of view. That's the frame for your article. You then fill it with analysis, facts and perspective. Twitter forces you to focus on the frame itself. And likely, just a part of it. Great for putting forth a central idea that can be pursued in greater detail elsewhere. Your tweet on startups... "Startups in 137 chars: Make something someone specific needs, launch fast, let users show you what to change, change it, repeat last two." ...is a great example. There are multiple articles that could be written in relation to that observation. They help clarify and deepen the argument. But you managed to distill the essential elements of the idea into 137 characters. I'd say think of the things you're seeing, the discussion you're following out there. Share your perspective, drawn from your own interests and activities, and the (possibly wrongheaded) points being made by others.