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Does anyone here use twitter? Can you explain how and why?

by jderick 16y ago

dpcan 16y ago
Thank you. If you use it, why? When? What for? How is it actually "used" anyway? If you tweet, do you also ever read what's ... tweeted?
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  I found it very useful for following the Iranian uprising last year. Since then, however, I mostly use it for updates and promotion of my open source software project (Appleseed). As for more intimate discussion, I've never really grokked how to use it in that way.
imack 16y ago
It takes a while to find a use. Originally, I thought it was just the status feature of Facebook for people over 35, so I was wondering why everyone was so excited about a limited feature set. I've definitely come around. I don't think everyone uses it the same way, but I'll rhyme off a few uses I've found. 1 - Replacement for RSS. Follow the blogs you do on RSS and get push notifications of updates. Authors sometimes have smaller things to say than a blog post requires, so the feed acts as an added feature. 2 - Follow the doings of "niche celebrities" like Eric Reis and PG. They give advice and comment on recent events, but aren't really popular in the mainstream sense. 3 - Follow more general celebrities. It gives people you are a fan of a direct line to you independent of traditional media outlets. Think Conan when he was without a network, and Kevin Smith is doing some interesting things as well. Sure, Kim Kardashian has a huge following which she uses to hock products, but there is a massive audience who wants precisely that. 4 - Comedy feeds. I find when comedians have only 140 characters, the constraint makes the jokes more punchy. (plug: my traction deficient app http://laughlitmus.feedladder.com http://laughlitmus.feedladder.com is trying to capitalize on this; viral loops are a bitch) 5 - Real time events. You'll hear about an earthquake on trending topics before any media outlet. 6 - Following privacy paranoid real life friends. Twitter has a dead simple privacy model. Either people can publicly see your feed, or they have to approve you. Some people I know got fed up with the Facebook privacy shell game and switch to Twitter for this. 7 - Connecting with a loosely coupled community. For those of us not in the valley, finding fellow hackers can be troublesome, and when you do, you don't really need a heavy connection, but following each other on twitter is a nice lightweight way to see if the local tech event is going to be hacker or muggle heavy. 8 - Location based chat for conferences. Hashtags allow for people to mark a discussion about anything, and a lot of meetups will tell you the recommended hashtag so you can see what people are discussing in a specific place. I hate is the whole "Twitter is just people talking about what they had for breakfast" complaint, it really just meant you are following boring people. There actually exist a non-trivial set of people I know whom I am friends with on Facebook (and real life) but wouldn't follow on twitter because they're tweeting about stuff I have no interest in.
tptacek 16y ago
It is, among many, many other things, the primary way we get people to our monthly ChiSec meetups. It's also been a hiring vector for us. There's two uses for you.
code_duck 16y ago
It's great for getting news about music and bands, and also connects you to people like that (large or small celebrities) in a unique way. Posting messages on Twitter takes much less time or commitment than writing a blog post, so I hear a lot more from and about my favorite musicians. Following humorists such as Steven Colbert is entertaining. Twitter also hooks you into a social circle of your choice in a unique way. I've heard about all sorts of software projects, new releases, rumors, etc. from Twitter. I have also used it as a place to post and broadcast messages about my businesses, and customers may see it appear in their feed if they follow us, or they can go to our page as twitter members or not and see the latest news.
lsc 16y ago
I use twitter, mostly for, uh, "reputation management" E.g. twitter is a place that people complain about their interactions with companies. If someone complains about me on twitter, (or anywhere else, really... but twitter seems to be the place to complain about companies right now.) I try to make it right, or at least see to it that they get a refund.
Tycho 16y ago
I like reading amusing tweets like CEOSteveJobs. I figured the main drivers of it were breaking news via retweets, and finding ad hoc discussions of things via loacation or #tags. I don't have much to say myself though.

Does anyone here use twitter? Can you explain how and why?

by jderick 16y ago

Does anyone here use twitter? Can you explain how and why?

dpcan 16y ago

Thank you. If you use it, why? When? What for? How is it actually "used" anyway? If you tweet, do you also ever read what's ... tweeted?

michaelchisari 16y ago
I found it very useful for following the Iranian uprising last year. Since then, however, I mostly use it for updates and promotion of my open source software project (Appleseed). As for more intimate discussion, I've never really grokked how to use it in that way.

imack 16y ago

It takes a while to find a use. Originally, I thought it was just the status feature of Facebook for people over 35, so I was wondering why everyone was so excited about a limited feature set. I've definitely come around. I don't think everyone uses it the same way, but I'll rhyme off a few uses I've found. 1 - Replacement for RSS. Follow the blogs you do on RSS and get push notifications of updates. Authors sometimes have smaller things to say than a blog post requires, so the feed acts as an added feature. 2 - Follow the doings of "niche celebrities" like Eric Reis and PG. They give advice and comment on recent events, but aren't really popular in the mainstream sense. 3 - Follow more general celebrities. It gives people you are a fan of a direct line to you independent of traditional media outlets. Think Conan when he was without a network, and Kevin Smith is doing some interesting things as well. Sure, Kim Kardashian has a huge following which she uses to hock products, but there is a massive audience who wants precisely that. 4 - Comedy feeds. I find when comedians have only 140 characters, the constraint makes the jokes more punchy. (plug: my traction deficient app http://laughlitmus.feedladder.com http://laughlitmus.feedladder.com is trying to capitalize on this; viral loops are a bitch) 5 - Real time events. You'll hear about an earthquake on trending topics before any media outlet. 6 - Following privacy paranoid real life friends. Twitter has a dead simple privacy model. Either people can publicly see your feed, or they have to approve you. Some people I know got fed up with the Facebook privacy shell game and switch to Twitter for this. 7 - Connecting with a loosely coupled community. For those of us not in the valley, finding fellow hackers can be troublesome, and when you do, you don't really need a heavy connection, but following each other on twitter is a nice lightweight way to see if the local tech event is going to be hacker or muggle heavy. 8 - Location based chat for conferences. Hashtags allow for people to mark a discussion about anything, and a lot of meetups will tell you the recommended hashtag so you can see what people are discussing in a specific place. I hate is the whole "Twitter is just people talking about what they had for breakfast" complaint, it really just meant you are following boring people. There actually exist a non-trivial set of people I know whom I am friends with on Facebook (and real life) but wouldn't follow on twitter because they're tweeting about stuff I have no interest in.

tptacek 16y ago

It is, among many, many other things, the primary way we get people to our monthly ChiSec meetups. It's also been a hiring vector for us. There's two uses for you.

code_duck 16y ago

It's great for getting news about music and bands, and also connects you to people like that (large or small celebrities) in a unique way. Posting messages on Twitter takes much less time or commitment than writing a blog post, so I hear a lot more from and about my favorite musicians. Following humorists such as Steven Colbert is entertaining. Twitter also hooks you into a social circle of your choice in a unique way. I've heard about all sorts of software projects, new releases, rumors, etc. from Twitter. I have also used it as a place to post and broadcast messages about my businesses, and customers may see it appear in their feed if they follow us, or they can go to our page as twitter members or not and see the latest news.

lsc 16y ago

I use twitter, mostly for, uh, "reputation management" E.g. twitter is a place that people complain about their interactions with companies. If someone complains about me on twitter, (or anywhere else, really... but twitter seems to be the place to complain about companies right now.) I try to make it right, or at least see to it that they get a refund.

Tycho 16y ago

I like reading amusing tweets like CEOSteveJobs. I figured the main drivers of it were breaking news via retweets, and finding ad hoc discussions of things via loacation or #tags. I don't have much to say myself though.