Why Twitter Rules, a Rebuttal
My friend and respected colleague Rob McDonagh just posted a rant on Why Twitter Sucks, and to me it seemed very much like the old codger saying “Get off my lawn” so I figured I would write why I think Twitter rules in a rebuttal to the fair Captain. So read his rant first, and then you can come back here. Ready? Good, lets begin:
- There are No Unread Marks – Actually I agree with this, I would like it myself. But my guess is that there is a programmer somewhere who can work this out. It can’t be that hard. Also, follow your twitter stream in an RSS reader and you’ve got yourself unread marks.
- People use twitter to say the Most Inane things – Very true, but many times I actually love these little details. It helps me keep in context the fact that people have a life outside the technology. Seeing that someone watches a certain TV show might make me take a look at that show myself. And more than once, seeing what someone was about to eat gave me a craving for the same thing. I like it. I guess if you don’t like people that post those things, you can always stop following them.
- Conversations are disjointed – This is true too, but like Rob pointed out, if people used the proper conventions it’s much easier. And there are tools like Quotably that help in this regard.
- 140 characters? – Yes, 140 characters. Deal. If you can’t then send an email or an IM. I find that having to condense what I’m going to tweet about into 140 characters makes things more concise and easier to handle. It’s a texting world, 140 characters is practically a novel to the kids these days.
- No concept of stopping and starting a day – Okay, and this is a problem why? See, I think you have to view twitter in a certain perspective. If you consider Twitter to be a bar or a party, you can come and go as you want, and when you are there you are part of conversations, you might go to the bathroom and miss a conversation but that doesn’t mean you grill everyone on what you missed, you contribute to the people you are around at the time. Think of it as hanging out with a group of friends, and it becomes much easier to handle…
- Twitter auto updating Facebook – Seriously, you are complaing about THIS? Both statuses (along with every other site with a status) is meant for you to post your current status. To me they are one and the same. Friends who are only on Facebook see the same thing as people who are only on Twitter. Everyone is updated equally. The fact that things like ping.fm can update statuses all over the place allows ease of use for the poster and allows users at ANY of the services to get the same information.
- Responses that don’t make sense to people we don’t follow – I actually kinda LIKE this. You know why? Because on more than one occassion reading the reply lead me to read the original person’s tweet, and then in turn I started to follow them because they were interesting. I ignore the ones that don’t make sense or aren’t interesting to me. You need to be less obsessive compulsive about reading every little thing. Once again, think of it as a party where people are chatting. Think of the “don’t make sense” tweets as times when you walk up to a friend talking to a stranger and hear the tail end of a conversation. Maybe you jump in and meet someone new, or maybe you walk on by.
- Spam in twitter – You’re getting nitpicky now. Of course, some people that can follow you are spammers, but if you don’t follow them, you don’t get spam IN Twitter. If you are talking about follow requests, you are diving too deep here.
- People tweet instead of blogging – Yup, and it’s absolutely wonderful. There are many times I have a thought that I want to keep track of, but I don’t really have enough to base a full blog post on, so I tweet it. Sometimes the conversation in Twitter gets big enough to finally warrant a blog post, sometimes not. I find it increasingly harder to find time to fully blog, so being able to micro-blog on occassion is beneficial to me, and probably to many others. In fact, I bet there are some people for whom Twitter is a much better medium for them to share thoughts than a full-on blog.
Another reason I like twitter is because of my two best friends, Mike and Tim. They live several hours away, and I only get to see them a couple times a year (kinda like certain Lotusphere buddies.) Anyway, we can email and chat (and we do) but Twitter feels more like we are hanging out. One of us will say something, and we’ll respond to each other and rip on each other and stuff like that. I like knowing the details of what they guys are doing at work too. It really seems more like we are hanging out and chatting over a beer than anything else. To me, twitter has a more personal feel to it than pretty much any of the other “social” mechanisms out there.
Now take TwitNotes. Having that open in my sidebar simply rules. Much love to Mikkel for doing it for us. While I’m at work I live in the Notes client. Having to flip back and forth to a twitter client or the website gets annoying. Having it pop up in the Notes 8 sidebar is easy, and at a glance I can see the latest information. If I want to jump in, I can. 140 characters here and there is easy to do and not really a drain on productivity.
The other thing about Twitter is that I learn things I never would have by traditional means. Late last year, a tweet I responded to saved me about $500 in an electonics purchase. I know that Rob probably falls in that same boat there, and because of Twitter, he has $500 more in his pocket. To me, that’s enough to keep on using it right there.
So, in essence, I think Twitter rules. And I’ve thought so for awhile, but I couldn’t really explain it well until now. So thanks for that Captain, you’ve inspired me to put into words what I’ve been thinking for awhile! Twitter is like a large party where you are hanging out with friends, and if you treat it that way, it makes a lot more sense, and becomes a lot easier to manage in your head.
So what do you think? Does Twitter suck, or does Twitter rule?
May 6, 2008 @ 12:27 am
If you two don’t start behaving, I will turn this blog around, so help me…
May 6, 2008 @ 12:41 am
This “Twitter in Plain English” video is one of the best explanations of what Twitter is that I’ve seen:
{ Link }
Mike
May 6, 2008 @ 12:56 am
I’m right in the middle. Obviously people know I love Twitter. I’m on your side with the technical points (don’t care about unread marks, don’t mind 140 characters, etc), and I’m on Rob and Susan’s side about how people are behaving badly in real life social situations.
Twitter has enabled me to make MANY connections that blogs would not have. I see people I know “tweeting” with others that I don’t know, I look up who they are, and perhaps follow them. Blogs don’t do this. I’ve never looked at another blogger’s blog roll. Planet Lotus has been wonderful in this regard.
As for saying insane things, yup! I love it! Twitter allows me to talk about things that I don’t want to use my blog for.
Also, I’ve learned TONS from people’s tweets. Either personal things about them, or about products, websites, books, etc.
So how’s that for PC, you’re all right! And that is the point. Tools can be used however they best meed the needs of the user. Simply saying something sucks or is great is wrong in both directions.
May 6, 2008 @ 1:36 am
Sure it has it’s moments, but for those of us on the run or workign from home or waiting for servers to install or replicate or whatever it just sits there in my sidebar of 801.
Will it take over the world? Not likely.
Find amusing everyone wants to add pieces to it, that’s not what its about.
It’s really about just simple updates, not presence awareness or tracking or any of that stuff, because now you are talking about….Sametime!
When will people realize just how good it is and how useful it can be?
Twittime(as I call Sametime Twitter) would be a persistent chat room.
May 6, 2008 @ 3:24 am
Warning: long response, my comments preceded by “–” to separate them from your earlier points:
–Oh, thanks *so* much for making me respond to comments in two places, you rat bastard. What is this, collaboration 101 now?!? *snicker* Don’t worry, though, you can still have my love child any day!
My friend and respected colleague Rob McDonagh just posted a rant on Why Twitter Sucks, and to me it seemed very much like the old codger saying “Get off my lawn” so I figured I would write why I think Twitter rules in a rebuttal to the fair Captain. So read his rant first, and then you can come back here. Ready? Good, lets begin:
–Thanks for the “old codger” comparison, that’s been my goal in life, to be one of those guys waving his cane at those young whippersnappers…
* There are No Unread Marks – Actually I agree with this, I would like it myself. But my guess is that there is a programmer somewhere who can work this out. It can’t be that hard. Also, follow your twitter stream in an RSS reader and you’ve got yourself unread marks.
–Ah, now this is useful. I’m so glad I ranted, because I didn’t know there were RSS feeds for my twitter stream. Thanks, man, that definitely makes it better!
* People use twitter to say the Most Inane things – Very true, but many times I actually love these little details. It helps me keep in context the fact that people have a life outside the technology. Seeing that someone watches a certain TV show might make me take a look at that show myself. And more than once, seeing what someone was about to eat gave me a craving for the same thing. I like it. I guess if you don’t like people that post those things, you can always stop following them.
–Problem is that I want to see some of their tweets, but not all. Having it in RSS will help with this, though – it’s easier to ignore there.
* Conversations are disjointed – This is true too, but like Rob pointed out, if people used the proper conventions it’s much easier. And there are tools like Quotably that help in this regard.
–As long as you’re directly being referenced, true. But when people pull in others and drop some randomly, it’s very confusing. I still maintain that it’s a bad mechanism for a conversation thread – they’re trying to shoe-horn more collaboration into a tool that fundamentally is poorly designed for that.
* 140 characters? – Yes, 140 characters. Deal. If you can’t then send an email or an IM. I find that having to condense what I’m going to tweet about into 140 characters makes things more concise and easier to handle. It’s a texting world, 140 characters is practically a novel to the kids these days.
–Bah! I thought the point was that Twitter was fundamentally different from email and IM? Now you’re saying it does the same thing, but with fewer characters allowed? No, this is an outdated SMS texting thing, and it’s a dumb restriction given the data availability out there. In other words, texters should be able to send longer TMs as well.
* No concept of stopping and starting a day – Okay, and this is a problem why? See, I think you have to view twitter in a certain perspective. If you consider Twitter to be a bar or a party, you can come and go as you want, and when you are there you are part of conversations, you might go to the bathroom and miss a conversation but that doesn’t mean you grill everyone on what you missed, you contribute to the people you are around at the time. Think of it as hanging out with a group of friends, and it becomes much easier to handle…
–Sorry, but that’s just not an accurate analogy. It’s not like hanging out with friends in a bar at all, it’s like standing behind a crowd of friends in the middle of a discussion, without them knowing you’re necessarily listening or not, without exchanging greetings when you walk up, and without you getting the 10 second conversation dump that always happens in those cases.
* Twitter auto updating Facebook – Seriously, you are complaing about THIS? Both statuses (along with every other site with a status) is meant for you to post your current status. To me they are one and the same. Friends who are only on Facebook see the same thing as people who are only on Twitter. Everyone is updated equally. The fact that things like ping.fm can update statuses all over the place allows ease of use for the poster and allows users at ANY of the services to get the same information.
–As I said, it’s convenient for the person updating the status message and it is annoying for the person seeing it multiple times. I also think there’s a difference in quality between a FB update and a tweet – tweets are *supposed* to happen several times a day, FB updates are supposed to happen less frequently, and as a result people usually put more thought into their FB updates. Maybe you don’t *want* to put thought into them, which is fine too. But the reality is that FB users who aren’t cramming their tweets into the system produce more meaningful updates.
* Responses that don’t make sense to people we don’t follow – I actually kinda LIKE this. You know why? Because on more than one occassion reading the reply lead me to read the original person’s tweet, and then in turn I started to follow them because they were interesting. I ignore the ones that don’t make sense or aren’t interesting to me. You need to be less obsessive compulsive about reading every little thing. Once again, think of it as a party where people are chatting. Think of the “don’t make sense” tweets as times when you walk up to a friend talking to a stranger and hear the tail end of a conversation. Maybe you jump in and meet someone new, or maybe you walk on by.
–Fair enough, YMMV, as with most things in life. I still disagree with your party metaphor. Steve Castledine’s comment on my blog post was a better approach, to me – he said to ignore everything that comes before the moment in time when you check Twitter, because it really doesn’t matter. Which makes sense to me, but it makes me wonder, if it’s so unimportant, why I bother following along at all?
* Spam in twitter – You’re getting nitpicky now. Of course, some people that can follow you are spammers, but if you don’t follow them, you don’t get spam IN Twitter. If you are talking about follow requests, you are diving too deep here.
–Call it a prediction. People are too cocky about how Twitter isn’t hacked and spammed and fished, etc. It’s unrealistic to expect that to continue.
* People tweet instead of blogging – Yup, and it’s absolutely wonderful. There are many times I have a thought that I want to keep track of, but I don’t really have enough to base a full blog post on, so I tweet it. Sometimes the conversation in Twitter gets big enough to finally warrant a blog post, sometimes not. I find it increasingly harder to find time to fully blog, so being able to micro-blog on occassion is beneficial to me, and probably to many others. In fact, I bet there are some people for whom Twitter is a much better medium for them to share thoughts than a full-on blog.
–You’re kind of making my point for me, though. You’re tweeting instead of blogging. That’s a bad thing for the community as a whole, though I’ll agree it is easier for you personally.
The other thing about Twitter is that I learn things I never would have by traditional means. Late last year, a tweet I responded to saved me about $500 in an electonics purchase. I know that Rob probably falls in that same boat there, and because of Twitter, he has $500 more in his pocket. To me, that’s enough to keep on using it right there.
–As it happens, I got that notification by a personal email. But your point stands.
May 6, 2008 @ 3:25 am
Oh, and Alan, you are NO FUN AT ALL! Here Grey and I are, trying to have a nice sophomoric pissing match, and you have to be all mature about it. In the words of Jon Stewart, “Damn you, Lepofsky, with your reasonable, logical comments!”
May 6, 2008 @ 4:14 am
I fart in both of your general directions.
May 6, 2008 @ 4:25 am
Hi Rob! I figured you would enjoy the “get off my lawn” reference
I did that specifically for your pleasure.
Now, I will respond to you! (And for the record, try cocomment again, it’s a good way to keep everything together)
–Bah! I thought the point was that Twitter was fundamentally different from email and IM? Now you’re saying it does the same thing, but with fewer characters allowed? No, this is an outdated SMS texting thing, and it’s a dumb restriction given the data availability out there. In other words, texters should be able to send longer TMs as well.
Think of it this way, if you were allowed to type more than 140 characters, the conversations would get even longer and harder to comprehend. Also, this is a service that many people only use from their mobile phones. Too many characters is too hard to type and too hard to read on a small screen. The 140 character limit is a huge plus to me.
–Sorry, but that’s just not an accurate analogy. It’s not like hanging out with friends in a bar at all, it’s like standing behind a crowd of friends in the middle of a discussion, without them knowing you’re necessarily listening or not, without exchanging greetings when you walk up, and without you getting the 10 second conversation dump that always happens in those cases.
I disagree, to me it’s like Kimono’s. It’s loud and there are several different conversations going on. You could be standing in the middle and hearing parts of each. You could even hear parts of one conversation while engaged in another. To me, the analogy is more for hearing what’s going on and responding/ripping on each other. That can happen in IM and email, but you aren’t going to send something like that on a whim. Whereas here, it is more whimsical.
–tweets are *supposed* to happen several times a day, FB updates are supposed to happen less frequently, and as a result people usually put more thought into their FB updates.
Who are you, the status police? Why are FB updates supposed to happen more infrequently? One of my favorite things was seeing everyone’s status changes.
Anyway, there is an easy way to filter that too. At the bottom of your facebook newsfeed, click Preferences. You can then add people to the More About this person group and Less about this person group. This allows you to see more of what you want, less of what you dont.
–You’re kind of making my point for me, though. You’re tweeting instead of blogging. That’s a bad thing for the community as a whole, though I’ll agree it is easier for you personally.
No it’s not bad at all. The reason why is, I would probably never get around to blogging those things anyway. So, at least this way I got the thoughts out there. And besides, I dunno if I can call this a valid criticism from someone who posts approximately once every other month
The fact that you post so infrequently is bad for me, because I always enjoy reading your posts. Um, so POST MORE DAMNIT!
-Grey
May 6, 2008 @ 5:26 am
Ah, we’ll have to agree to disagree on cocomment, too! When I submitted that first comment, it blew up (yes, on your blog) and I had to click the “cancel and just post comment” link. It’s great that the link exists, but as a blog consumer, it still sucks that I have to know about that. 😛
You know, several people have agreed with me about the FB statuses. So it’s hardly a case where I’m bitching to myself in the wilderness – it seems to be a popular opinion. Which doesn’t make it right, necessarily, as our recent Presidential elections show pretty clearly…..
re: my blogging habits – ah, but my habits haven’t changed. I’ve *always* blogged infrequently. And I’m not blogging less frequently now. Others, however, are. Less blogging is a bad thing, regardless of the cause.
May 6, 2008 @ 8:53 pm
Re the “No unread marks” part…
Twhirl adds unread marks.
May 6, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
@10 Yes, and as my post mentioned, I do use it. At home. But it only adds unread marks on that one machine. I want the unread marks to travel with me, because I use a completely different OS at home than at work, so the unread marks in twhirl don’t help me when I’m at work.
May 7, 2008 @ 9:06 am
@11 Point taken. I don’t have the ability to run something like twhirl at work so I don’t really see that. Oops.
May 7, 2008 @ 9:06 am
@11 Point taken. I don’t have the ability to run something like twhirl at work so I don’t really see that. Oops.