5cagm

There was a thread earlier about who uses Linkedin and the response was much larger than I anticipated. I was just wondering if there are similar numbers of us using twitter. If you do use twitter what do you generally use it for? Do you tweet or follow? What are your twitter account names, I would love to read some of your feeds. Cheers,

Craig

@cycleswapca

brian3069

What's twitter?

cudak888 

Try the Road forum.

-Kurt

stien

Yeah I'm 21 and I still hate twitter. Bunch of self important sissies this world has been taken over by.

Maddox

I used twitter until I realized I get just as much response by walking into my front yard and yelling "I'M MAKING A SANDWICH" as I did by posting it online.

Only downside to yelling what I'm doing is that some of my friends don't take my calls anymore. But it's okay because I'm at the leading edge of the emerging social media world.

5cagm

Wow I didn't know Twitter was such a touchy subject. I like to use twitter to share links to articles that I find interesting and to link to new posts in my blog. I didn't know that made me a "self important [sissy]" but I guess I was wrong. Sorry for asking.

stien

Lol take me lightly. I just have a few friends who abuse social network sites like I've never seen before.

cudak888 

In a community of luddites, you bet it is.

-Kurt

blaise_f

Just tweeted this.

5cagm

I definitely understand where you're coming from. I have some of those friends on facebook who love to let me know that their boyfriend or girlfriend is awesome and that they just made a bowl of rice. I can't stand that kind of post either. I'm also fairly young, 23, so I see a lot of social media abuse haha

+1 to each of you hahaha

blaise_f

I'll be honest (and serious for a short bit): I loathe all social networking sites. They're life-sucking, time wasters. That said, they're an important aspect to web design and using the internet. If you own a webpage that you intend to have any serious amount of traffic, you need them. For my personal use, I find it a lot more pleasant to send a text message to Twitter (which then auto-sends to Facebook) saying, "I wasn't eaten by bears while sleeping last night" than calling 15 family members while I'm in some remote location cycle-touring. They have their place (and I like to think I tap that place just right), but they are 'abused' more than used.

5cagm

+1 I a gree 100% with everything you said. There are many people who get far too caught up in them and lose a grasp on reality and socializing with people in the real world. I use twitter primarily for my website as it is an effective way to gain interest, drive visitors, and improve SEO. That being said I do find that many people abuse social networks as well. I like facebook because it is a good organization/events tool. As you said, it is much easier to contact a large group of people then to phone around with hopes that people are home, have their phone, etc. It also saves my time, and seems to get more response.

Maddox

Yes they're important, but 95% of all twitter "users" are bots and "retweeting" spam-machines, and 98% of all unique tweets are never read by anyone at all. There is absolutely nothing "social" about "social media", and most "social media marketers" are just self-promoting turds.

In my opinion, the only thing that redeems Twitter is when it is used in rare occurences in the way it allows the common man to be a news source and to make text messages or photos available to the masses (i.e. on-the-ground reporting during the Iran elections, firsthand photos of Flight 1539 landing in the Hudson, etc). For that reason, it's interesting to think how things would have been different if Twitter and texts messages had been around in September of 2001 or at any other insane part of world history - But part of the downfall of Twitter is that unsubstantiated rumors spread just as quickly as facts ("omg so and so [insert name of Celebrity of Political figure] has died!!"", etc ad infinitum).

For that reason, I don't rely on Twitter for anything, but will occasionally check a very select group of a few people to see what they have to say.

lotek 

I actually have a twitter account, I think I used it once or twice. I did find I was being
followed by all sorts of interesting people whom I don't know.
I think it was around the time I started thinking along the lines of "If I use Twitter, does that make
me a Twit" that I lost interest in twitter.
Have a facebook account too, same story. I much prefer actually socializing and if it's going
to be electronic I can usually find somewhere to post here at BF.