{"id":17593,"date":"2010-06-11T22:18:56","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T04:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=17593"},"modified":"2010-06-11T22:18:56","modified_gmt":"2010-06-12T04:18:56","slug":"twitterly-musings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/11\/twitterly-musings.html","title":{"rendered":"Twitterly musings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Doyce wrote an interesting blog entry about Twitter: The one where he was kind of a dick about Twitter \u2013 doyce testerman<\/a><\/p>\n

Dig around on the internet and you\u2019ll find some kind of data analysis that says that most of the traffic on Twitter is generated by about 10% of the users. In my own experience, about 90% of that traffic [is] noise: \u201cinspirational\u201d retweets, links to websites without any kind of context, and (on a good day) maybe something like \u201cheading out for the day, it\u2019s been a tough one!\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t hate stuff like that; it doesn\u2019t rate that kind of emotional response \u2014 I just don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t want to read some dead guy\u2019s famous quote unless I also get to see why it matters to you; I don\u2019t want to click on a link without reading why you think it\u2019s cool; and I don\u2019t want to know what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

I want to know what you\u2019re thinking<\/em>. If you want to tell me what you\u2019re thinking about what you\u2019re doing, though, that\u2019s fine<\/em>. Telepathy, people: that\u2019s what twitter is for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good stuff.<\/p>\n

Of course, on one level, that’s like asserting what the Internet is for:\u00a0 some will say it’s to tie people together, others will say it’s to share information, others will explain it’s to provide a nuclear-strike resilient research network, while still others will argue quite persuasively that it’s actually for porn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So the best you can do is idealize what you, yourself, are looking for from the Net, or how you use it, or how you like to see it used.\u00a0 And ditto for Twitter.\u00a0 And, of course, I’m being annoyingly pedantic here in overparsing what Doyce had to say.\u00a0 Especially since it’s a nice ideal he himself presents.<\/p>\n

So, self-examingly … whom do I follow <\/em>(I won’t say friend<\/em>, and I think that’s actually a nice distinction) on Twitter?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Friends.\u00a0 By which I mean actual people, who I like (and not in a click-on-the-thumbs-up trivial fashion).\u00a0 Generally either people who I know In Real Life, or whose blogs I follow. @DoyceT is, of course, one of them (on both counts).<\/li>\n
  2. Posters who are amusing or interesting to read for their actual tweeted (rather than linked) content. @Willw, @BPGlobalPR, @NeilHimself<\/li>\n
  3. Good fodder for the blog mill (often a proxy for an RSS feed).\u00a0 @Kottke, @TheDisneyBlog, @pourmecoffee, @Newscientist, and @Alltop fall into this category, for different reasons.<\/li>\n
  4. News. @denverpost, for example, as well as a number of the Google feeds.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"twitter-addicts\"<\/a>Whom don’t I follow?<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. People who tweet too much.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 There are some very entertaining, very interesting, and\/or very notable folks I’ve followed at times, but eventually had to drop because they were adding a substantial percentage to my overall Twitter feed sizee, which is already too busy for me to properly follow.<\/li>\n
    2. People who don’t say much of objective consequence, unless <\/em>I am interested in the not-much they say.\u00a0 If Glenn Greenwald tweets about his sore back in the morning, then about PT later, then about how the Advil isn’t helping his sore back, bored now.\u00a0 If it’s a friend of mine doing it, I’m interested, because I am vested in that person, and the trivial becomes the significant.<\/li>\n
    3. Folks who are too obviously obsessed with branding<\/a> themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I’m currently following 110 people (of which maybe a third actually post to any significant degree).\u00a0 That’s too many, and I probably need to clean off some of those.<\/p>\n

      I’m also followed by 165 people.\u00a0 I do periodically go through and clean out<\/a> the obvious dross and spambots and others.\u00a0 It’s more difficult to clear out followers who are just following in hope that I’ll follow them back; I don’t, but it’s no skin off my nose.<\/p>\n

      But that all leads into the most significant question, which is, aside from what I read, what do I use Twitter for to write<\/em>?\u00a0 Well …<\/p>\n

      I don’t do a lot of linky-love.\u00a0 I use GReader shares for that. (For those who’d like a taste of what that would look like in Twitter terms, go to @UnbloggedBits — unfortunately, it doesn’t pick up my comments, which means it’s plain title+links).\u00a0 I do post quotes by old dead guys without context — but I do it as a Twitter feed from my quotations blog, so I think of it more as reference material than acontextual mutterings.<\/p>\n

      \"lastjudgment\"<\/a>No, most of what I use Twitter for is as a microblogging interrface to my own blog.<\/p>\n

      Twitter is, sometimes, called a microblogging tool.\u00a0 The “micro” part comes from\u00a0 that infamous 140 byte limit.\u00a0 But within those contexts, it makes for a fine way to post stray thoughts to my blog without actually loading up a client.\u00a0 Each night, approaching midnight, all the day’s Tweets get munged into a single post on this blog, thanks to the TwitterTools extension in WordPress.<\/p>\n

      And, yes, most of those tweets are of the “Boy, it’s hot. Work sucked today. I love my wife. Saw a fun TV show last night. Oooh, fried chicken!” kind of trivia. And, no, I don’t expect people who have no interest in me to have any interest in that kind of thing.\u00a0 But, then, if it’s being routed to my blog, then it’s at least as much of a way to journal my life (which is one of the Five Reasons I Blog) as anything else.<\/p>\n

      I do occasionally RT something I found particularly interesting on Twitter to my own feed.\u00a0 Though it’s always with an awareness that it’s going to go to my blog, too.<\/p>\n

      The third thing I use Twitter for is conversation.\u00a0 Sometimes it’s just a reply to a Tweet someone I follow has made (usually “Boy, that sucks” or “Oh, I love that show!” kind of stuff, but sometimes as a proxy for actual IM).\u00a0 Since that stuff doesn’t get pushed into the TwitterTools posts to my blog (which would paint a more complete picture of my life, sure, but also would mean I’d have to watch what I chat “privately” about a lot more closely).<\/p>\n

      So this was all sort of long and rambling, talking about my own Twitter use, reading and writing.\u00a0 I’m certainly the first to admit that my tweets aren’t terribly witty, or all that insightful (since I save the real insight for actual blog posts, I like to think, or at least for media > 140 characters), but they are, for the most part, me — most likely, I’d think, only of interest to people who’d care in person if I mentioned a TV show I like or what I had for lunch or how much work sucked on a particular day.<\/p>\n

      \"DorkTower731\"But that’s still real, and one of the Incredibly Cool Things about Twitter is that following someone is, in fact, utterly voluntary and non-obtrusive.\u00a0 You only have to follow someone if you get something out of it. Whether or not it makes you close friends, or teacher-disciple, or victim-stalker, it’s essentially a free transaction. So folks who have an interest in the real me (or my attempts to record the real me while still being not quite as prosaic as literally listing everything I’m eating for lunch) can follow me.\u00a0 Folks who don’t are under no more obligation to do so than they are to read my blog.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 I don’t mind. I die inside a little bit, but I don’t mind …<\/p>\n

      So that’s my Twitter use.\u00a0 And I guess maybe I’m going into all this length because sometimes I feel a little guilty about being more mundane than I think I “should” be in my tweeting.\u00a0 I should be doing something more than, “Powerful hot, ain’t it?” kind of stuff.\u00a0 I should be making bold, fascinating statements about my beliefs, my life, my politics, clusters of 140 words that compel reading and following, and attract follower lists in the gazillions.<\/p>\n

      I’m afraid I’m just not that interesting.\u00a0 Which, perhaps, takes some of the pressure off. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Doyce wrote an interesting blog entry about Twitter: The one where he was kind of a dick about Twitter \u2013 doyce testerman Dig around on the internet and you\u2019ll find some kind of data analysis that says that most of the traffic on Twitter is generated by about 10% of the users. In my own … Continue reading “Twitterly musings”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tweets","category-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/DorkTower731.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14250,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/18\/storytelling-via-twitter.html","url_meta":{"origin":17593,"position":0},"title":"Storytelling via Twitter","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 18-Mar-09 2:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doyce gets interviewed (first of three parts) on how he's Twittering a story. First, the format of the story is something like a first-person private journal, so the language itself is terse, but it's more than that: the constraints of the Twitter format (140 characters, and my own desire not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/imagestwitter.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13361,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/13\/the_blogging_barrier.html","url_meta":{"origin":17593,"position":1},"title":"The blogging barrier","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 13-Jan-09 4:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doyce blogs: I'm actively communicating online all day, every day, but my main blog languishes. Why is that? Simplicity. Twitter tweets, facebook updates, Flickr photo posting, and sharing news articles...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging - Technical"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging - Technical","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogging-technical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13352,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/01\/14\/tweet.html","url_meta":{"origin":17593,"position":2},"title":"Tweet!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Jan-09 10:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, so it looks like I've gotten the Twitter-to-MT thing working. Yay! Easy (if short) blogging from the road, by just sending an SMS message to Twitter from my mobile....","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging - Technical"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging - Technical","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogging-technical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1550,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/12\/12\/we_get_comments.html","url_meta":{"origin":17593,"position":3},"title":"We get comments …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 12-Dec-01 6:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... and now the comments will remember who you are (if you want), thanks to Doyce and Athenia Associates. But mostly thanks to Doyce, who is, in fact, a Golden...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5965,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/15\/slow_going_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":17593,"position":4},"title":"Slow going","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 15-Jun-04 9:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Off on vacation for ... well, actually for the week. Possibly some minor blogging at the beginning and end, but a big dry spell (appropriately enough) for most of the...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2112,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/08\/hmmm_id_better.html","url_meta":{"origin":17593,"position":5},"title":"Hmmm. I’d better think about this one.","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 8-Mar-02 2:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A cautionary note. (Via Doyce)...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}