6 ms·

Ask HN: What positive value has Twitter added to your life?

duiker101 6y ago
Like with everything I do, I end up creating apps to improve my experience. With twitter I made a little app that made me some spare change. So I guess that's most of the value I got from it. Other than that, I learnt quite a bit about marketing myself and how to bring value to other people. Just like with all social media, Twitter can be a double-edged sword and one must make a conscious use of it.
gulato 6y ago
I learned what a hashtag is. That's it.
- giantg2 6y ago
  I feel like this is a negative thing. Sure, they might help you find specific content, but they tend to only give you one side of the story (un-diverse results).
cblconfederate 6y ago
There are many great online conferences and lectures now, and twitter is good for keeping an eye on what happens when. I think whatever negative can be fixed with a few settings and rigorous unfollowing. The most annoying about it is that, from time to time, it will suggest to follow people that i absolutely loathe
soulchild37 6y ago
Shared my technical knowledge on Twitter initially, then subsequently got some internet techie friends, then got job offers, got consultation offer, sold ebooks to interested followers etc. Almost life changing level positive I would say.
consilience 6y ago
Twitter is a time sink at best, and behavior modification at worst. Not having a Twitter account has added tremendous value to my life.
Raed667 6y ago
This was a long time ago (at least ~10 years), but i met a great bunch of people who shared common tech interests, many of which are still good friends even today. Today, nothing really. I don't get any interesting interactions, most htags are spammed as soon as they start picking momentum, and the entire platform feels "tired"
MilnerRoute 6y ago
In general I try to limit my time on Twitter - but there was one time where I got something out of it. Once I was following the author of one of my favorite programming books, and he announced he was giving away from copies of his latest one. I won, and he mailed it to me, and even autographed it.
gradschool 6y ago
I had an appliance out of warranty in need of repair. The manufacturer wouldn't help but recommended a freelancer. The freelancer was taking weeks to get around to it, but getting a friend with a twitter account to tweet about it lit a fire under his tail, possibly due to pressure from the manufacturer. On another occasion I was trying out a cloud service offering a small amount of free usage in exchange for a tweet, so I signed up for a twitter account to tweet about it. I also tweeted that Donald Trump should appoint Judge Judy to the supreme court, but that tweet was ineffective.

Like with everything I do, I end up creating apps to improve my experience. With twitter I made a little app that made me some spare change. So I guess that's most of the value I got from it. Other than that, I learnt quite a bit about marketing myself and how to bring value to other people. Just like with all social media, Twitter can be a double-edged sword and one must make a conscious use of it.

gulato 6y ago

I learned what a hashtag is. That's it.

giantg2 6y ago
I feel like this is a negative thing. Sure, they might help you find specific content, but they tend to only give you one side of the story (un-diverse results).

cblconfederate 6y ago

There are many great online conferences and lectures now, and twitter is good for keeping an eye on what happens when. I think whatever negative can be fixed with a few settings and rigorous unfollowing. The most annoying about it is that, from time to time, it will suggest to follow people that i absolutely loathe

soulchild37 6y ago

Shared my technical knowledge on Twitter initially, then subsequently got some internet techie friends, then got job offers, got consultation offer, sold ebooks to interested followers etc. Almost life changing level positive I would say.

consilience 6y ago

Twitter is a time sink at best, and behavior modification at worst. Not having a Twitter account has added tremendous value to my life.

Raed667 6y ago

This was a long time ago (at least ~10 years), but i met a great bunch of people who shared common tech interests, many of which are still good friends even today. Today, nothing really. I don't get any interesting interactions, most htags are spammed as soon as they start picking momentum, and the entire platform feels "tired"

MilnerRoute 6y ago

In general I try to limit my time on Twitter - but there was one time where I got something out of it. Once I was following the author of one of my favorite programming books, and he announced he was giving away from copies of his latest one. I won, and he mailed it to me, and even autographed it.

gradschool 6y ago

I had an appliance out of warranty in need of repair. The manufacturer wouldn't help but recommended a freelancer. The freelancer was taking weeks to get around to it, but getting a friend with a twitter account to tweet about it lit a fire under his tail, possibly due to pressure from the manufacturer. On another occasion I was trying out a cloud service offering a small amount of free usage in exchange for a tweet, so I signed up for a twitter account to tweet about it. I also tweeted that Donald Trump should appoint Judge Judy to the supreme court, but that tweet was ineffective.