Deeper Twitter- Tuning Twitter for Value

August 28, 2007 · Comments

Twitter Power This all started because I wanted to dig into exactly who I was following on Twitter, and who was following me. Not in that “quid pro quo” way, but I became interested in who found my Twitters of value, and who wasn’t even tuned in any longer. Note: I send LOTS of Twitters, so I understand why people would drop me after a fashion. But the thing is, I try to send lots of USEFUL Twitters, so I hope to keep people engaged.

In doing this digging, I found some things of interest, and thought I’d share them, because I find that they helped me better understand what I value about Twitter, how I use Twitter, and what, if anything, can be made of this social augmenting system.

Deep Users vs. Internet Stars

Reviewing who I follow became interesting. I found that there’s a difference between real Internet deep users and “Internet stars.” The Internet stars barely use the application, rarely follow back, and don’t understand how they could be using it as a platform. These include new media personalities, and mainstream personalities who use Twitter because someone told them to use it.

Deep users like Robert Scoble or Eric Rice or Dave Winer interact on multiple levels and in different modes. Watching people like this give you a sense of ways Twitter can be useful.

Announcers vs. Conversationalists

This is a current hammer-target for Eric Rice. He’s railed out about people (including me) using Twitter as a promotion engine. I understand this, insofar as some people do nothing but twitter links to their blog posts, their flickr pictures, and whatever else turns them on. (Note: I will Twitter that I posted this article when I’m done writing it).

But conversationalists know to use a mix. They talk with other Twitter users, using the @ function to make sure people see the threaded conversation. They engage with the flow of people twittering around them, building a social sculpture, and engaging in what Jeff Pulver calls amorphic communications. Conversationalists reach into Twitter and move people back and forth.

Finding the Future

If you’re not following NewMediaJim, you’re missing your own personal newsbreaker. Cutting straight through the crap, Jim (who has a day job with NBC) brings us news TO US, not to the mass media. And gives us pointers to places we might have missed in the clutter that used to be daily news. Follow Kosso and learn new tech craziness. Follow about a hundred forward-thinking people and watch Twitter bring you information far faster than your RSS feeds, your television, your podcasts. It’s just faster. Follow DYKC, who is always giving me reasons to pause and think.

For Fun and Community

There’s another Twitter hidden in all this and I don’t want to discount its value. There are people out there like Ann in Ohio and Marti Liz Strauss and Brendajos and hundreds more who use Twitter like a great social outlet, a place to communicate and build relationships, and converse. It’s AMAZING and lovely seeing these friendships happen, to watch the jokes and the lighthearted side of Twitter come out. And seeing “names” participate in these reindeer games is triply fun for me.

Check Yourself

Let’s not forget to consider ourselves in this examination. If I’m tuning Twitter for value, I’d better be ready to scrutinize my own traffic. Of my last two pages of tweets, I’ve sent about 50% of my messages as @ messages to other people. In my last two pages, I have asked a few general questions. I’ve also asked questions to educate me. I have pointed to other people’s projects, and once to my own. That seems reasonable. Why should you connect with me on Twitter? Because I’m showing that you can use Twitter for something other than talking about your food and your delayed flight (though when I’m delayed, I sure get twittery).

Summary

For all of its 140 character limitations, Twitter teaches impactful brevity, enriches online relationships, delivers human-powerful search (which should be further inspiration for Jason Calacanis), and provides a strong sounding board. By culling and cultivating my Twitter network, I’ve found a recently improved vision of who’s out there talking about meaningful things (or things that matter to me). In fact, I suspect Twitter has some kind of “gating” factor that decides how many updates from my list I can see, no matter if I’m following 200 or 2000. So consider that, too, when selecting who you choose to follow.

About that, who are YOU following, and why do they matter to you?

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  • Hey Chris. I just stopped following you on Twitter. And speaking for those of us who quit... here's the thing. There's a lot of noise out there. Adding to it doesn't help anything. I try not to Twitter more than 5-10 times a day. Getting one from one person every ten minutes it just too much. When I go to my Twitter home, all I see is posts by you. It's annoying. It's bacn. I already subscribe to your RSS, so why would I want the double-loaded info?

    I love what you have to say. I love your blog. I'm just keeping my Twitter to myself. ;) Thanks.
  • Great post, Chris! I love Twitter for its immediacy and brevity. I do get a teeny bit annoyed at the ones who drop a post link and run away, but their tweets are so brief, I can scan past them for the good stuff - like you!

    Best wishes to you for a wonderful day!
  • @Mark - Sorry to see you go, but I quite understand. I imagine that if you've got a fairly small, well-cultivated Twitter stream, I'd come off as excessive. It's good that you choose not to follow people who overwhelm your stream.

    Good point.
  • Chris, I think you make a good case on how to get value from Twitter on many levels. I also have noticed that I get news and info much faster through Twitter than through feeds. So much so that I have trouble focusing on reading my feeds. ;)
  • Great post! This ties in perfectly for my upcoming post (look for it tomorrow morning) 5 Next Steps for Twitter. Chris, to that end, where do you see Twitter's best next 5 steps/areas for growth?
  • Honestly Chris, I don't see that you tweet all that much. I'm going to sound like a grump here but what does seem excessive to me are not simply the "good mornings" but the string of no content no added comment "good morning" responses.

    We're smart people. We can think of something to add, like it's a clear gorgeous day in Hotlanta. or my boos is in a lousy mood or take the surface streets today because the freeway is dead stopped.

    It's not that I don't like to be greeted. Please people just give us something to respond to. Something to toss around, look up, read about, blog about.

    In the evenings I love twitter in a different way as people obviously drift in from their day. But then sometimes it feels like a chat line, as entertaining as that can be. But wait a minute; give me my cane, I'm sounding like my grumpy grannie! Apparently there's a blog post brewing on this topic and I just didn't know it. Thanks for the nudge. (and tell people I'm not really as annoyed as this sounds, even after editing)

    (Ready for the shoe throwing and un-following)
  • Mostly I just answer the question. What am I doing? The beauty of Twitter is that if no one cares, they can dump me. And some have. But almost all the people I follow follow me back, and a bunch I don't follow as well (admittedly mostly spammers.) I might @ someone a few times a day, I try to always respond when someone @'s me. I've had some fun/funny conversations, and I love when I appeal to the twitter-hive for info and get great responses. I've even gained four clients (so far) for my little design biz via Twitter!

    Obviously different people use Twitter in different ways. It's a tool just like anything else. I'm sure even Biz, Ev, and Jack never foresaw the community aspects that would develop, but they're a nice side effect!
  • Hey great post. What are twitters?


    www.ericwordelman.com</a>
  • Today I twittered "I think people have become a little too beholden to Google, as evidenced by how they're attacking Scoble." Then I thought, wouldn't it be great if Twitter could, beside converting to tinys, also use links to pingback! I mean to blogs, as well as other Twitteres. Wouldn't that be great? Anyone?
  • Great post Chris. I've been waiting for you to write this one since you did your eval. I've always been one to believe that the heart of new media is relationships. One of the interesting things about Twitter I've found is that the ability to peak into someone's life in near-real-time helps develops these relationships. Just another way to connect with people.
  • Interesting post, Im still deciding if twitter is worth it or just distracting.
  • LEMills
    Hi Chris.
    The biggest problem with twitter is that it doesn't allow me to do what I'm doing right now: reply to you in an open conversation. Yes, the @ function is clever, but I can see those posts only if I'm following both the 'from' and 'to' twitterers. Otherwise, they're dead to me.

    What I find completely perplexing is how such media-savvy types can miss the usefulness of Jaiku, which allows open comments such as this one and permits participation by anyone seeing the post. By dumping my twitter RSS into Jaiku, I need go to only one place, and if a tweet-owner also has a Jaiku account, they can see my comments on their posts there. Sure, Jaiku's still ironing out the SMS details in the US, but once that happens, I'd predict that twitter will need to modify itself or remain the domain of the narcissists.

    A friend and I were just talking on Skype about the continuing preponderance of what we'd call the "who the hell cares" posts on twitter, and to my surprise, I've realized that I follow 11 people yet am followed by 66. Djeez. I don't even post there much any longer.

    Think of all the things we could get done if we weren't interrupted by someone's need to tell us how much work they've gotten finished on any given day.

    Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend who doesn't even have a cell phone, and I can't wait, because I know that what we'll talk about will be surprising and refreshing, untarnished by the false intimacy that twitter seems to impart. The good old days aren't always that bad, right?

    -L.
  • @John- twitter's 5 next steps are interestingly in probably extending out the platform to handle groups, tags somehow, deeper search, and maybe some other services, like how Dave Winer got it to speak, fetch, and roll over, or how Kosso cooked up a Gnomedex group app with a few scripts.

    @Susan- the hello, hello, hello reminds me of old IRC days. I used to do a one-man performance piece called "chat room" when it made sense.

    @Annie - you're doing it just fine. : ) There are tons of ways to use it, just like there are tons of ways to use the platform. I like your stuff.

    @Seth - I think Jason Calacanis thinks so. I think Jimmy Wales thinks so. And why not? Humans answer LOTS of questions for me.

    @Linda- I think Jaiku is cool, EXCEPT that it's so multi-dimensional that it doesn't work nicely on my crackberry. It's lovely, has lots of rich features, and for whatever reason, feels more like blogging to me than brief messages. NO IDEA what that is. If/when they open a US SMS portal, I'll probably give it a go. But you're right. People don't give Jaiku its due.

    BTW, feels crazy that Guy Kawasaki cited this post and said he's doing half of Twitter wrong. No you're not, Guy. And besides, you're just getting your feet wet. (A fan from when you spoke about the first Mac at MIT to the BCS).
  • Chris:

    Inspirational to say the least. Now I shall contemplate what "type" of twitter'r I am. Certainly want to make the most of all of this.
  • Hmmm...did I miss your twitter link Chris? I read the article...I promise!
  • I'll continue following your Twitter feed. I enjoy your posts 90% of the time, and the other 10% I do what twitter allows me to do, and scroll past. :)

    Besides, I rarely find that you post too much (although sometimes, for mysterious reasons, the other 150+ people I follow go silent all at the same time and 5 of your tweets will roll in one after the other - ringing loudly in the silence) :)

    Mind you... I did have to stop following your evil twin Christine Brogan... disturbing photo aside, I couldn't take the chit-chat :)
  • And remember, I don't know who they are, the clones. I appreciate the chit chat of 3 of the 4 (as it's often making fun of me). The fourth I recommend blocking.
  • From the beginning, I've struggled with Twitter, debating its personal usefulness to me ever since it exploded at SXSW. After SXSW, I'd check it once in awhile. However, while attending Gnomedex, I got addicted to reading everyone's twits, and I definitely participated more, using the DM feature for the first time.

    Now that Gnomedex is over, I'm back to checking only a few times a day. I have a difficult time feeling like there's value in my random interjections in to the conversation. Comments from people keeping track throughout the day (e.g., you, Scoble, etc.) are actually a fast way to catch up on what's happened in a day.

    Twitter conversations seem fresh and to the point, a feature not always common in many discussions. But those same qualities can also be drawbacks. Sometimes I want more than 140 characters can deliver. For me, Twitter is one piece of a bigger social puzzle, neither making nor breaking my experience, only adding its own flavor to the mix.
  • For me, Twitter is my water cooler. I know so many people from Podcamp(s) now all over the country, twitter is a way to maintain and extend those conversations in small ways- to keep in touch with many people at once without sending out "christmas letter" style emails to stay current with people I care about.

    When our dog died recently, I felt pretty low and twittered about it. My twitter friends, through twitter and in response, longer emails, were incredibly supportive and I felt real friendship and care when I needed a virtual hug- I got it from great friends at long distance.

    Twitter deepens my connections with others through the real life information; it connects me to blog posts and new information I might have missed otherwise; it lets me keep friends and others informed of things like the latest happeings in the run up to Podcamp Philly; I can help others and get answers to questions and friendsource faster than sorting through pages of google answers- It's my consumer reports meets newswire meets water cooler for a virtual workspace.

    I guess while some people find the small chats about cooking or kids silly, I love them because it makes people real and accessible. And for me, the personal tidbits are as much a part of me as my tech side- these things make us human, not just a one note voice in the darkness
  • Mike
    Twitter blows me away by its reach, its mix of relevance and irrelevance, and variety of people I have 'met' and thoroughly enjoy getting to know over time.

    Its like life. I don't have time to take it all in, but when I stick my head up above my 'desk', it's nice to see all y'all out there. :)

    I'm 100% guilty of tweeting travel progress - and I need to trim that back a good bit. But with things like twittermap.com, it sure was fun to follow @mosqueda across the country. :)

    Anyway, keep Tweetin' just like you're doing Chris. Sometimes it makes me think, sometimes its good for smile.

    -- Mike
  • Out of all the Stateside marketing professionals I always found your stuff the most human. But your tweets aren't for me.

    I'd rather have a handful of comrades on Twitter (I have) than a thousand ""followers"".
  • I think people are still making value-based judgment calls about Twitter (and the people who use it) without realizing that Twitter is a blank slate. It's a tool. It's a cypher, which each of us uses in our own way.

    To say "Twitter works / doesn't work" misses the point: what you mean is, "The WAY I'm using Twitter works / doesn't work FOR ME." If it isn't working, switch it up.

    Don't hit nails with the claw end of the hammer.
  • Hey Chris, while I enjoy your Tweets that ask deep questions about our psyche, most of the time I don't reply or comment via Twitter because I imagine you're overwhelmed by all the responses.

    I want to have a dialog some times but feel its difficult to get my voice over the top of all your followers.

    So I occasionally speak up, but most of the time I just enjoy reading what you have to say. I hope I'm not cut off for just enjoying what you have to say.
  • I have said it a million times, I love twitter. It's by far my favorite social tool. I follow 3 types of people: friends, local people, and people I find interesting or find me interesting. That last one I guess could be split into two but I classify it as "interest". If someone @'s me on something I say or has commented on my blog via a tweet I sent then they obviously want to have a convo with me, so I follow. I currently follow 204 people and It's its rare that I see things in their that I don't like or care about. Keep on Tweetin yo!
  • Interesting post. I have tried and think I am successful in creating a mix between using Twitter the right way, vs using Twitter as a promotional tool. I don't link to everything I do, but I do link to articles I spent quite a bit of time writing because I look forward hearing some sort of feedback, or to start a conversation on Twitter.

    I use TwitBin which allows me to see my Friends Twitter messages within my browser sidebar allowing me to continue the conversation easily while also being able to post a tweet. I too, don't use Twitter so much as to say what I am doing at the moment, I generally Tweet random thoughts, or I respond to someones question, or I try my best to start a conversation.

    I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I never seem to get people involved in the topics I bring up. Maybe I should use the new search feature of Twitter and add all kinds of Web 2.0 specific people to my watchlist.
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