Wednesday, December 17, 2008

What is Twitter to you?

I thought twitter was a form of group texting. Rather generic random comments thrown out by people you know so you get interesting little tidbits of their day.

At least, that's how I use it and who I've signed up for.

But there are complete strangers who subscribe to me and I don't even know how they've found me. Or why?????? Then I click on their profile and they are following 750+ people and have 900+ followers.

Ummmmmm?????

There's no way they are getting updates from 750+ people delivered to their cellphone. And there's no way they are reading all of those from their computer. Unless they truly have no life, but how would they keep up on that many conversations????

I can see signing up for a political figure you are interested in and why that person would have thousands of followers. But then to turn around and find that person following 800+ people, what's the point of that? Is that giving your stamp of approval?

Also, the strangers that have signed up for my twittering never comment to me or respond in anyway, which suggests they aren't reading. So why sign up at all? Is it a way of hinting that they want me to follow them?

I think I'm some how missing the point with twitter.

What is twitter to you?

8 comments:

Protium the Heathen said...

Does it mean users of Twitter are Twits?

T T Eyes said...

little birdies twitter...oh sorry :)

I dont use it, havent really got a clue what its all about....

Xavier Onassis said...

I use it kind of like Instant Messaging with all of my friends, but I can do it on my own phone instead of my employers computer.

It's great for impromptu social gatherings. Can't tell you how many times we have thrown together a lunch somewhere with a random group of twitters (although, I'm with Protium, I think we are all a buch of twits!).

That being said, here is what I think is going on with the ones following thousands of twits. I don't think they are reading them, I think they are data mining them for key words and trends using automated search engines.

For instance, let's say I am an executive at Logitech. I might want to monitor the twitterverse for traffic for tweets containing the name Logitech. Of the ones that do, I might want to track the number that contain adjectives like "sucks" or "love" or "customer service" or "assholes". I might also want to look for specific product names like "G15 keyboard" or "mouseball".

That's the only thing that makes any sense.

Anonymous said...

I use it to throw out random comments, to notify followers I have a new post on my blog, or to announce an interesting article I think others might want to read.

It's also been a bit of fun to tweet my blip.fm songs of the day, and to hear what others are listening to.

I've ended up following some people when I've seen replies to them from people I was already following. So I ended up following quite a few people, but have since dropped some because their tweets weren't interesting to me.

I can't imagine following 100s, seems very pointless.

Green-Eyed Momster said...

I'm new to Twitter but damn woman, it's about time you had a post! I've missed you very much!

Hugs!!

Joe said...

Sorry, Fiery, never used it. Keeping up with my blog and my favorite reads is enough for me.

Poodles said...

I love when the slutty girls with boobie pictures add me. That's always a treat!

Sean Wright said...

Hey Poodles,

How come I never get slutty pics :(