4 ms·

Serious question: what is the benefit of Twitter? I never understood it. Since you’ve found a utility niche, would you expand on the statement?

modeless 7y ago
Similar to Hacker News for me: interesting tech articles and discussions, but with a different feel. I follow a bunch of graphics programmers and machine learning researchers. There's a lively community with a bunch of famous people participating as well as lesser known people who are really good in certain niches. Particularly in machine learning it seems like thousands of papers are published every week, impossible to sort through. I find that the few I see people talking about on Twitter are the most interesting and worthy of attention. Here's a list I made a while ago of the machine learning people I follow: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/b6dwrd/d_best_current_twitter_accounts_to_follow_for/ejjvt1t/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/b6dwrd/d_b...
throw_m239339 7y ago
Marketing, It's great for brands or anybody that has something to sell (a book, a product, an idea,...). It kind of replaced RSS for many people, expect it's a centralised tool. Unfortunately "journalists" use it way too often to make up news out of nothing, gather random photos/videos without fact checking and spread rumors and falsehoods as truth. Something like the Covington Catholic school fiasco heavily relayed by the media, based on a footage where people saw what they wanted to see, would have never happened without the viral aspect of Twitter. The irony is that Twitter ended up banning the person that spread it, but none of the Twitter verified people that called for the murder of school students.
- 3pt14159 7y ago
  Eh. I dated a nationally recognized journalist / writer. They use it to network and follow trends. Or, if they're working on a story someone else has covered, to see if there is anything that that person could share that didn't make it into the article (background conversations, etc). When it comes to the actual work though she spend 99% of her time at the library, archives, prison, or on the phone with sources.
- maest 7y ago
  > It's great for brands or anybody that has something to sell That doesn't make it sound very enticing for the average user.
blfr 7y ago
Idiosyncratic musings and one liners. Some people are truly masters of this new art. https://twitter.com/nickmullen/status/1198243634971365379 https://twitter.com/nickmullen/status/1198243634971365379
wutbrodo 7y ago
At a minimum, for me it's been a very high-quality personal RSS. If I were so inclined, the fact that I can engage in the fascinating conversations I'm seeing is a bonus. This does rely on keeping a tightly curated following list
paulddraper 7y ago
It's like r/programming or such.
simonsarris 7y ago
I've made more friends and acquaintances on Twitter than any other social network. It's also easily the most intellectual social network. If you care deeply about something, you will find your people on Twitter. For me and many others it is a place where we can share what we consider beautiful and sacred, what we find compelling and carefully thought. It is an agora shimmering with such things. Even though much of the good web has retreated to private spaces like email lists and secret slacks, I am in some of those things because someone was able to find me on Twitter. (And yeah we all need to vent, and have our human bouts of melancholy. But if you use twitter solely to participate in the negative, you are really missing out!)

modeless 7y ago

Similar to Hacker News for me: interesting tech articles and discussions, but with a different feel. I follow a bunch of graphics programmers and machine learning researchers. There's a lively community with a bunch of famous people participating as well as lesser known people who are really good in certain niches. Particularly in machine learning it seems like thousands of papers are published every week, impossible to sort through. I find that the few I see people talking about on Twitter are the most interesting and worthy of attention. Here's a list I made a while ago of the machine learning people I follow: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/b6dwrd/d_best_current_twitter_accounts_to_follow_for/ejjvt1t/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/b6dwrd/d_b...

throw_m239339 7y ago

Marketing, It's great for brands or anybody that has something to sell (a book, a product, an idea,...). It kind of replaced RSS for many people, expect it's a centralised tool. Unfortunately "journalists" use it way too often to make up news out of nothing, gather random photos/videos without fact checking and spread rumors and falsehoods as truth. Something like the Covington Catholic school fiasco heavily relayed by the media, based on a footage where people saw what they wanted to see, would have never happened without the viral aspect of Twitter. The irony is that Twitter ended up banning the person that spread it, but none of the Twitter verified people that called for the murder of school students.

3pt14159 7y ago
Eh. I dated a nationally recognized journalist / writer. They use it to network and follow trends. Or, if they're working on a story someone else has covered, to see if there is anything that that person could share that didn't make it into the article (background conversations, etc). When it comes to the actual work though she spend 99% of her time at the library, archives, prison, or on the phone with sources.
maest 7y ago
> It's great for brands or anybody that has something to sell That doesn't make it sound very enticing for the average user.

blfr 7y ago

Idiosyncratic musings and one liners. Some people are truly masters of this new art. https://twitter.com/nickmullen/status/1198243634971365379 https://twitter.com/nickmullen/status/1198243634971365379

wutbrodo 7y ago

At a minimum, for me it's been a very high-quality personal RSS. If I were so inclined, the fact that I can engage in the fascinating conversations I'm seeing is a bonus. This does rely on keeping a tightly curated following list

paulddraper 7y ago

It's like r/programming or such.

simonsarris 7y ago

I've made more friends and acquaintances on Twitter than any other social network. It's also easily the most intellectual social network. If you care deeply about something, you will find your people on Twitter. For me and many others it is a place where we can share what we consider beautiful and sacred, what we find compelling and carefully thought. It is an agora shimmering with such things. Even though much of the good web has retreated to private spaces like email lists and secret slacks, I am in some of those things because someone was able to find me on Twitter. (And yeah we all need to vent, and have our human bouts of melancholy. But if you use twitter solely to participate in the negative, you are really missing out!)