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You're going to think I'm trolling, but I'm not-- What value does Twitter provide to ordinary people? I have friends who are celebrities in their industries or

You're going to think I'm trolling, but I'm not-- What value does Twitter provide to ordinary people? I have friends who are celebrities in their industries or trying to market themselves-- but other than that it seems like the most hostile place imaginable. Why would I want to participate in that?

craftyguy 9y ago
In the US, most ordinary people pay attention to twitter's top customer: donald trump
- olivermarks 9y ago
  I suspect the vast majority of people read what Trump said on Twitter on their favorite news site, rather than using Twitter itself.
marssaxman 9y ago
I wonder the same. It has always seemed to me that Twitter gets a disproportionately large share of media attention simply because Twitter happens to be personally useful to the people doing the reporting. For those of us who are less interested in drama-hunting and reputation-mongering, its utility is unclear.
SllX 9y ago
As a massive collection of humans sending messages to each other and broadcasting across the board, it has a lot of "stuff" to offer. Exactly what this "stuff" is comes down largely to your own ability to curate a decent list of providers of "stuff". This doesn't necessarily differentiate it from any other large provider of "stuff" hosting enormous groups of humans messaging each other and broadcasting "stuff", e.g. reddit, but it is still host to certain groups of humans for which Twitter is their platform of choice to air this "stuff" out. Product announcements, celebrities, certain subsets of certain industries (e.g. I used to follow a curated collection of Mac indie developers back when I was 15 and wanted to be one), activists, customer support reps, politicians, whatever, if you can think of it, you can probably find it has a place somewhere on Twitter and that is what makes Twitter valuable to you. It might be entertainment value, knowledge, news, lifehacks or whatever, and maybe for you personally you have much better sources for all of that, but Twitter just happens to be the place others get some or all of this from. Then there are the people that treat it like a diary, or journal, or a place to vent. For them, Twitter isn't for following a curated collection of people, for them Twitter is just a place to talk. You know, a messaging platform. Full disclosure: haven't personally used Twitter in years other than as a file transfer host from a particular video game console lacking decent file transfer options. It is valuable to other people, I just prefer my "stuff" in a different format than what Twitter provides.
ikeyany 9y ago
Entertainment, and something to do, for the most part. If you look at who makes the most money in our society, it's obvious what "ordinary people" value.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> What value does Twitter provide to ordinary people? I don’t tweet. I do read newspapers. Twitter appears to have made journalists quicker at spotting trends. (By making it easier to find quotes, it also makes them more productive.)
snowwrestler 9y ago
It's the fastest way to find out what is going on, in a wide variety of subjects. Reporters often tweet while they're working on a story, and definitely tweet the instant it publishes. That is generally true across any industry or beat. And lots of people tweet when they're pissed about things, so Twitter search is the first place I check to see if a major service is down, and why. A lot of information security folks tweet as they working or to release information. Heck, just following the Google Zero folks on Twitter had given me early hints of major security issues. There are some hilarious folks on Twitter, many who are just random folks. Especially if you like absurdist humor, or dumb jokes (or both), it's amazing. There are people of deep expertise posting and conversing on their subjects. Early on in the DNC hack saga, @pwnallthethings described in great detail the public evidence that it was Russia. Finally there is local stuff like, will any of my favorite food trucks will be near my office today? What are the custom flavors at the gelatto shoppe today? When exactly is likely to start raining in my area? There's a lot more. But to get a lot of value out of Twitter, each person needs to be following the accounts that are best for their interests, or know how to use the search well, or both. Either way, there is a learning curve. The fast way up that learning curve is to experiment--be quick to follow folks who look interesting, but also be quick to unfollow the ones you don't like.
Angostura 9y ago
I work in part of the education sector. It's valuable tool as a way of keeping in touch with various institutions, publicly thanking people, disseminating news alerts, answering queries. I only use it for these purposes, I never see any bad or impolite behaviour

craftyguy 9y ago

In the US, most ordinary people pay attention to twitter's top customer: donald trump

olivermarks 9y ago
I suspect the vast majority of people read what Trump said on Twitter on their favorite news site, rather than using Twitter itself.

marssaxman 9y ago

I wonder the same. It has always seemed to me that Twitter gets a disproportionately large share of media attention simply because Twitter happens to be personally useful to the people doing the reporting. For those of us who are less interested in drama-hunting and reputation-mongering, its utility is unclear.

SllX 9y ago

As a massive collection of humans sending messages to each other and broadcasting across the board, it has a lot of "stuff" to offer. Exactly what this "stuff" is comes down largely to your own ability to curate a decent list of providers of "stuff". This doesn't necessarily differentiate it from any other large provider of "stuff" hosting enormous groups of humans messaging each other and broadcasting "stuff", e.g. reddit, but it is still host to certain groups of humans for which Twitter is their platform of choice to air this "stuff" out. Product announcements, celebrities, certain subsets of certain industries (e.g. I used to follow a curated collection of Mac indie developers back when I was 15 and wanted to be one), activists, customer support reps, politicians, whatever, if you can think of it, you can probably find it has a place somewhere on Twitter and that is what makes Twitter valuable to you. It might be entertainment value, knowledge, news, lifehacks or whatever, and maybe for you personally you have much better sources for all of that, but Twitter just happens to be the place others get some or all of this from. Then there are the people that treat it like a diary, or journal, or a place to vent. For them, Twitter isn't for following a curated collection of people, for them Twitter is just a place to talk. You know, a messaging platform. Full disclosure: haven't personally used Twitter in years other than as a file transfer host from a particular video game console lacking decent file transfer options. It is valuable to other people, I just prefer my "stuff" in a different format than what Twitter provides.

ikeyany 9y ago

Entertainment, and something to do, for the most part. If you look at who makes the most money in our society, it's obvious what "ordinary people" value.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> What value does Twitter provide to ordinary people? I don’t tweet. I do read newspapers. Twitter appears to have made journalists quicker at spotting trends. (By making it easier to find quotes, it also makes them more productive.)

snowwrestler 9y ago

It's the fastest way to find out what is going on, in a wide variety of subjects. Reporters often tweet while they're working on a story, and definitely tweet the instant it publishes. That is generally true across any industry or beat. And lots of people tweet when they're pissed about things, so Twitter search is the first place I check to see if a major service is down, and why. A lot of information security folks tweet as they working or to release information. Heck, just following the Google Zero folks on Twitter had given me early hints of major security issues. There are some hilarious folks on Twitter, many who are just random folks. Especially if you like absurdist humor, or dumb jokes (or both), it's amazing. There are people of deep expertise posting and conversing on their subjects. Early on in the DNC hack saga, @pwnallthethings described in great detail the public evidence that it was Russia. Finally there is local stuff like, will any of my favorite food trucks will be near my office today? What are the custom flavors at the gelatto shoppe today? When exactly is likely to start raining in my area? There's a lot more. But to get a lot of value out of Twitter, each person needs to be following the accounts that are best for their interests, or know how to use the search well, or both. Either way, there is a learning curve. The fast way up that learning curve is to experiment--be quick to follow folks who look interesting, but also be quick to unfollow the ones you don't like.

Angostura 9y ago

I work in part of the education sector. It's valuable tool as a way of keeping in touch with various institutions, publicly thanking people, disseminating news alerts, answering queries. I only use it for these purposes, I never see any bad or impolite behaviour