3 ms·

How to Tweet

33 points by DanielBMarkham 15y ago

edw519 15y ago
Being a natural optimizer, maximizing the value I get out of Twitter (and anything else) is an ongoing process. That process obviously needs tweaking if it made me unfollow @danielbmarkham. Daniel, you're one of my favorite writers, both here at HN and on your blog. You always find a way to get me thinking, no matter what you write about. Consider yourself re-followed. I know that you and I, along with many others, have tried to do our part (with mixed results) elevating the quality of discourse here at HN. Now its up to many of us to continue that effort in under 140 characters. Based on my feed, it seems like that's always a work in process.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  I'm going to take a bit of a contrary position, Ed. Do I really want to live in a world where great thoughts and works of literature are squashed into 140 characters? Nope. God, I hope not. I love being brief, pithy, and terse, but I fear that we look at Twitter as an optimization problem for one metric when in fact it is a completely different medium with it's own strengths and weaknesses. I am not trying to optimize Twitter for saying the same kinds of things I would say on HN. This would be like picking up a kazoo and trying to optimize it for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I am trying to optimize Twitter for exploring those unique types of things that Twitter is good at expressing. Different instruments and mediums excel at different things. In either case, we're all probably going to have to figure this out as we go along. :) I imagine there is no correct answer to "What's the best way to use Twitter?"
  - RockyMcNuts 15y ago
    Do I want to live in a world where love, tragedy, life are squashed into the 17 on of a haiku, or the 14 verses of a sonnet? not disagreeing with you... if you don't want to write or read haiku or sonnet or Twitter, that's cool. But a good Twitter feed has a certain value, which would not be the same if tweets were unlimited in length. The constraints, conventions, and formalisms are inherent to any artistic medium. Twitter is more of an alert/pointer/headline feed, not necessarily a feed of entire opuses (opi?). Although there are some good haiku and (ultra)short story feeds LOL.
  - jcr 15y ago
    > Do I really want to live in a world where great thoughts and works of literature are squashed into 140 characters? Nope. God, I hope not. Don't worry. As you know all too well, I was cursed at birth to write weighty tomes. If the world gets squashed to 140 characters, just send me an email. ;)
justinhj 15y ago
The nice thing about Twitter is that it is what you make it. You can choose the style of Tweeter to follow and you can Tweet how you like. Incidentally it's amusing/interesting that the comment policy on the blog is the opposite to what he expects from Tweeters. "if all you have to offer is general platitudes like how happy you are to have found my site and what a wonderful place it is, I will delete your comment and report your comment as spam"
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  I'm not sure I said the opposite in the article. Could you point that out? I thought I said "..We don't have to agree on stuff like politics, religion, life, the universe, or any of that. Hell, I would like it a lot better if we didn't! When I tweet something and we start up a little sidebar conversation, I get the feeling I am part of a larger community. That's what keeps me using Twitter..." In either case, the point of the article was that different communication mediums are useful for different things. Sorry -- I hope I don't sound defensive. I just was a bit confused that you took away that I wanted people to agree with on Twitter. Far from it! I am looking for office mates. Who wants a bunch of office mates that all agree on stuff? Sounds pretty boring to me. At the end of the day, yes, Twitter is what you make it. It's really cool to see how different folks use it in completely different ways.
  - LukeShu 15y ago
    It's not that you want people to agree on Twitter, it's that you expect Twitter to be "chit-chat. Small talk." Where your comment policy is basically "If it doesn't add value, don't say it".
    - DanielBMarkham 15y ago
      Cool. Thanks for that clarification. What I meant to say was that if you are a link spammer and are only there to post comments like "I love this blog! You are awesome! Please buy more designer handbags at this site XXX" then your comment will be deleted. Thanks for helping out! I'll fix the wording.
conradev 15y ago
> To me, Twitter is a bunch of people all standing in a room all talking to themselves, hoping to start a conversation. Best description I have heard to date.

Being a natural optimizer, maximizing the value I get out of Twitter (and anything else) is an ongoing process. That process obviously needs tweaking if it made me unfollow @danielbmarkham. Daniel, you're one of my favorite writers, both here at HN and on your blog. You always find a way to get me thinking, no matter what you write about. Consider yourself re-followed. I know that you and I, along with many others, have tried to do our part (with mixed results) elevating the quality of discourse here at HN. Now its up to many of us to continue that effort in under 140 characters. Based on my feed, it seems like that's always a work in process.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I'm going to take a bit of a contrary position, Ed. Do I really want to live in a world where great thoughts and works of literature are squashed into 140 characters? Nope. God, I hope not. I love being brief, pithy, and terse, but I fear that we look at Twitter as an optimization problem for one metric when in fact it is a completely different medium with it's own strengths and weaknesses. I am not trying to optimize Twitter for saying the same kinds of things I would say on HN. This would be like picking up a kazoo and trying to optimize it for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I am trying to optimize Twitter for exploring those unique types of things that Twitter is good at expressing. Different instruments and mediums excel at different things. In either case, we're all probably going to have to figure this out as we go along. :) I imagine there is no correct answer to "What's the best way to use Twitter?"
- RockyMcNuts 15y ago
  Do I want to live in a world where love, tragedy, life are squashed into the 17 on of a haiku, or the 14 verses of a sonnet? not disagreeing with you... if you don't want to write or read haiku or sonnet or Twitter, that's cool. But a good Twitter feed has a certain value, which would not be the same if tweets were unlimited in length. The constraints, conventions, and formalisms are inherent to any artistic medium. Twitter is more of an alert/pointer/headline feed, not necessarily a feed of entire opuses (opi?). Although there are some good haiku and (ultra)short story feeds LOL.
- jcr 15y ago
  > Do I really want to live in a world where great thoughts and works of literature are squashed into 140 characters? Nope. God, I hope not. Don't worry. As you know all too well, I was cursed at birth to write weighty tomes. If the world gets squashed to 140 characters, just send me an email. ;)

justinhj 15y ago

The nice thing about Twitter is that it is what you make it. You can choose the style of Tweeter to follow and you can Tweet how you like. Incidentally it's amusing/interesting that the comment policy on the blog is the opposite to what he expects from Tweeters. "if all you have to offer is general platitudes like how happy you are to have found my site and what a wonderful place it is, I will delete your comment and report your comment as spam"

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I'm not sure I said the opposite in the article. Could you point that out? I thought I said "..We don't have to agree on stuff like politics, religion, life, the universe, or any of that. Hell, I would like it a lot better if we didn't! When I tweet something and we start up a little sidebar conversation, I get the feeling I am part of a larger community. That's what keeps me using Twitter..." In either case, the point of the article was that different communication mediums are useful for different things. Sorry -- I hope I don't sound defensive. I just was a bit confused that you took away that I wanted people to agree with on Twitter. Far from it! I am looking for office mates. Who wants a bunch of office mates that all agree on stuff? Sounds pretty boring to me. At the end of the day, yes, Twitter is what you make it. It's really cool to see how different folks use it in completely different ways.
- LukeShu 15y ago
  It's not that you want people to agree on Twitter, it's that you expect Twitter to be "chit-chat. Small talk." Where your comment policy is basically "If it doesn't add value, don't say it".
  - DanielBMarkham 15y ago
    Cool. Thanks for that clarification. What I meant to say was that if you are a link spammer and are only there to post comments like "I love this blog! You are awesome! Please buy more designer handbags at this site XXX" then your comment will be deleted. Thanks for helping out! I'll fix the wording.

conradev 15y ago

> To me, Twitter is a bunch of people all standing in a room all talking to themselves, hoping to start a conversation. Best description I have heard to date.