Being a blogger and regular social networking kinda of guy, I have decided to make a concerted effort to understand and potentially use Twitter. For the uninitiated, Twitter is a “micro-blogging” site that works like a very slim version of Facebook or Myspace. If you strip out all of the photo galleries, long personal information entries and other nonsense, you get Twitter.
The service allows you to write 140 character “Tweets” that are then delivered to your “Followers.” You can also follow them in turn or search and find other people to follow. The users are diverse and almost endless. Today I started following Jimmy Fallon and Barack Obama…talk about a wide spectrum.
After that, it becomes much murkier. There are replies and direct messages, and the ability to filter the tweets somewhat. So how is something so simple and stripped down so complex? It turns out, at least in my opinion, it’s in how it’s used. Let’s take two of the people I currently follow..Alex Albrecht and Major Nelson.
Alex Albrecht is a net celebrity who co-hosts video shows on the Revision3 network. The Totally Rad Show is a gaming show and I hope you know what Diggnation is, if you haven’t, it’s time you grab a beer and watch it. Alex is a funny guy. I decided to follow him because he makes me laugh. I don’t know him, we have a few friends in common, but I doubt he has ever heard my name unless he came across my blog articles on World of Warcraft, he is apparently a big player. So ok, he is funny and I am curious what kind of nonsense he is up to. I can dig that.
Major Nelson is the personality of the Xbox Live network. I actually do know Major Nelson, although that’s not what I call him, but as an avid Xbox player, I am interested in what’s going on with the network. So I follow him because he is an authority on a subject I am interested in. I can dig that too.
Jimmy Fallon, Barack Obama, Malcolm Gladwell, Wil Harris from Channel Flip, a school mate and my wife round out my whopping group of 8 people I follow. So a celebrity, the president, an writer, an up and coming web tv celebrity, a friend and my wife. What a grab bag. This is where I am really confused.
On Facebook I communicate with friends and family. On LinkedIn I communicate with industry contacts. On MySpace, well, I cancelled MySpace 
So this is what my feed looks like right now:
Alex likes NCIS, I read a book (which I already knew), there are new clothes for Xbox 360 Avatars, Alex is back in LA, Major Nelson dislikes satellite radio drama, and he is at a hotel, I am watching lame 80s movie shortly, Alex finished taping Diggnation and posted a pic, and I wrote a blog article…..
I just summarized that whole page of summaries in a few lines. To be honest, none of it was of any interest to me.
So what is the etiquette now. Should I delete Alex and Major Nelson because they don’t seem to say anything interesting or relevant to me? Should I dig through the crap for a few gems that might show up from time to time?
This post has started to become as scattered as the tweets we have discussed so I will close with a question. What is the point of Twitter? Why is it becoming so popular and do you think it has the staying power to survive the incredibly attention deficit public?
If it’s something I should pay attention to, how do I choose who I follow and how do I break through the white noise?
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[...] . Fine, I can handle the computer, although it did cut into my blogging time but I can work Making Sense of Twitter – philoking.com 02/11/2009 February 10th, 2009 Goto commentsLeave a comment Being a blogger and [...]
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