Comments on: have you heard of this Twitter thing?

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:51:26 +0000

So I suppose I’m now thoroughly confused. It’s late, so I could also be sarcasm-impaired. Forgive me if that’s the case.
“…one that is so convincingly fake-democratic while actually just facilitating communication with rich, Apple-computer-owning white people like myself.”
Do what? I can only assume this is sarcasm, since there are Twitter clients for pretty much any machine you can point to (provided it has a Web browser), and for sure the majority of my personal circle doesn’t qualify as “wealthy” by American standards.
“Its adoption by the mainstream media has been similarly off-putting…”
Am I missing something in Twitter that mysteriously forces you to follow the feeds of people and organizations whose presence on Twitter you find off-putting?
“It is an almost unbelievably terrible medium for snark, but no one seems to have noticed.”
It’s equally possible that you’re looking in the wrong place. Several of my circle are *quite* adept at 140-character snark. But it’s also part of their personality, not a put-on schtick they do for exposure.
I really think you’re doing it wrong. But of course, part of the point is that anyone can use the service any way they like. Personally, I protect my updates, and block access to anyone I work with and certain members of my family. It sounds to me like you’re arguing that the patio of the corner bar used to be a great place to stand around with friends and bitch about work, until the chick dating your boss suddenly started showing up around the same time.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:13:18 +0000

I agree that there are a lot of people out there using twitter very stupidly, and against the grain of how the service best works.
Luckily though, I don’t have to follow those people. I follow people that are interesting and using twitter well. Mission accomplished.
Seriously. The best thing that twitter has going is the asymmetrical relationship model. You don’t need to follow people you don’t want to.
That being said, it would sure help if twitter provided users with an ability to filter tweets from people they are following. Say you were uninterested in BSG, you could just filter any mention of it out of your timeline.
I think things are going better than expected though.

By: matt w.

matt w. — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:00:41 +0000

Yep, the strange inversion of Twitter’s adoption — where I felt compelled to join because almost every media-related job listing asked for experience with it — still strikes me as a bit off even now that I use it. Maybe, in addition to their desire to not get left behind again, it’s also useful as a online-community-building tool as every paper smaller than the LA Times goes hyper-local.