Twitter

[CK]

A bunch of mates keep trying to convince me that I should be on Twitter. It looks to me, like Facebook in terms of the regular updates, but without the games etc on there. I keep getting told how good it is to be able to read what "celebrities" are up to etc, but I'm really yet to be convinced to join. After reading some of the stuff that forced Jarmila Gajdosova to shut her Twitter account down after her loss at the US Open, I'm even less convinced.

Who on here has Twitter and can anyone offer compelling reasons to change my mind about joining?

[gadj1976]

I too was convinced to join. Lasted about 20 minutes I reckon at most. Waste of time. But then I can't stand the rubbish that gets put on their by "celebrities" anyway - and hate gossip shows, so really I knew it would be a futile exercise.

I am on Farcebook but only cos I can keep in touch with interstate people and I change my work contact details every few months.

[mickey]

I have a Twitter account.. follow a couple of poker players, Perth Glory and Liverpool FC.

[CK]

I too was convinced to join. Lasted about 20 minutes I reckon at most. Waste of time. But then I can't stand the rubbish that gets put on their by "celebrities" anyway - and hate gossip shows, so really I knew it would be a futile exercise.

I am on Farcebook but only cos I can keep in touch with interstate people and I change my work contact details every few months.

I like Facebook for that reason also. A very dear friend of mine is interstate and she only gets back to Adelaide once a year or so, so great to be able to chat with her anytime on there (saves phone bills etc). Also good to keep in touch with family etc.

Sounds like much of what I expected on Twitter, then, Gadj

[Wedgie]

I tried Twitter a few years back and gave up on it like gadj but have recently set it up again on my phone.

It can be a very useful tool, for eg I have the Wallabies twitting me and on the night of the John Eales medal they gave me results as they happen, this happens for quite a lot of things if you follow them. Also some of the people that attend now "twit" as its on and give you some humerous behind the scenes info and pics that can be a laugh.

So basically its as good as the way you use it, if you just follow some celebs then yeah it would be boring as batshit and a waste of time, twit some organisations or events where you're interested in results or behind the scenes happenings and its great. Some artists twit first about tours, new songs, etc as well so it can also be very good if you're into music.

[Sky Pilot]

I'm on twitter. Love it. Good to be able to post short 144 word pieces on any topic and see who follows you. The art is to get people sooooo interested in what you are saying that they become a follower. You can follow who you like. Get bored - delete them. Simple

[mickey]

I have a Twitter account.. follow a couple of poker players, Perth Glory and Liverpool FC.

Also follow fox sports and get headlines etc.

[Media Park]

I have a twitter, haven't used it in probably two moths, and won't be going back...

Was funny following Charlie Sheen during his public self-destruction, some of the WWE guys were funny, but it's like a "read only" forum for me, as no-one was talking to me, I was only reading what others had to day.

[Q.]

Don't have a twitter account, but it would be useful in following news and blog article updates, particularly if you're interested in following specific writers and journalists. Couple with an RSS feed, you wouldn't miss much and probably find yourself with too much to read.

[Pseudo]

Who on here has Twitter and can anyone offer compelling reasons to change my mind about joining?

How much time do you have?

Assuming that your motivation for succumbing to this particular glass of digital Kool-aid is that you want to keep in touch with people, consider that:

- you can write nothing meaningful in 140 characters or less.
If somebody is worth communicating with, then they are worth committing the time and effort to do it properly. That means investing in a number of keystrokes an order of magnitude higher than 140. Condensing the description of your breakfast to fit in this limit can only B dun by lotsa SMS abrevns. Your message completely devoid of information, but this no longer matters since you have rendered it unintelligible.

- Twitter is not private.
Anything you send via twitter is by default readable by anyone. If you have something personal to say to a particular individual then well and good, but so you really want to inflict this on the other 2,213 people who follow you? When you go on holidays to the Cayman islands for 2 weeks, why would you tell the entire internet "in Q at a/port. Brding in 10. Sun and sea here I come WOOOO"? Would it not be simpler to paint a big sign saying "THE KEYS ARE UNDER THE MAT, HELP YOURSELF" and nail it to your front door?

- Twitter is dumbing down the internet.
The use of "social media" dreck like twitter - and particularly facebook - is predicated on the fact that You Have Something Worth Saying, and the rest of the internet wants to hear you say it. This is, for the typical internet user, sheer fantasy. 99% of the human race would be better served by learning to STFU than open their gobs. The prevalence of tools like twitter merely serves to grow the fantasy of importance among internet users, breeding narcissism, filling the bandwidth with irrelevant effing "tweets". A billion voices wanting only to be heard, and not one capable of listening. The signal-to-noise ratio of the internet grows infintely smaller every day, and the reason is effing twitter and the likes of it.

- Twitter is impersonal.
You want to keep in touch with a computer-savvy friend? Sit down, clear your thoughts, open up an editor and compose him/her a lengthy email; tailored especially for the intended listener, modulating your thoughts to a wavelength that is personal to your intended recipient. Twitter offers NOTHING that is not already achievable via email - except the foisting of your own inanity onto the hapless psyches of anyone who is dumb enough to "follow" you.

Rant ends. Glenelg must have lost this week.

[Barto]

Who on here has Twitter and can anyone offer compelling reasons to change my mind about joining?

How much time do you have?

Assuming that your motivation for succumbing to this particular glass of digital Kool-aid is that you want to keep in touch with people, consider that:

- you can write nothing meaningful in 140 characters or less.
If somebody is worth communicating with, then they are worth committing the time and effort to do it properly. That means investing in a number of keystrokes an order of magnitude higher than 140. Condensing the description of your breakfast to fit in this limit can only B dun by lotsa SMS abrevns. Your message completely devoid of information, but this no longer matters since you have rendered it unintelligible.

- Twitter is not private.
Anything you send via twitter is by default readable by anyone. If you have something personal to say to a particular individual then well and good, but so you really want to inflict this on the other 2,213 people who follow you? When you go on holidays to the Cayman islands for 2 weeks, why would you tell the entire internet "in Q at a/port. Brding in 10. Sun and sea here I come WOOOO"? Would it not be simpler to paint a big sign saying "THE KEYS ARE UNDER THE MAT, HELP YOURSELF" and nail it to your front door?

- Twitter is dumbing down the internet.
The use of "social media" dreck like twitter - and particularly facebook - is predicated on the fact that You Have Something Worth Saying, and the rest of the internet wants to hear you say it. This is, for the typical internet user, sheer fantasy. 99% of the human race would be better served by learning to STFU than open their gobs. The prevalence of tools like twitter merely serves to grow the fantasy of importance among internet users, breeding narcissism, filling the bandwidth with irrelevant effing "tweets". A billion voices wanting only to be heard, and not one capable of listening. The signal-to-noise ratio of the internet grows infintely smaller every day, and the reason is effing twitter and the likes of it.

- Twitter is impersonal.
You want to keep in touch with a computer-savvy friend? Sit down, clear your thoughts, open up an editor and compose him/her a lengthy email; tailored especially for the intended listener, modulating your thoughts to a wavelength that is personal to your intended recipient. Twitter offers NOTHING that is not already achievable via email - except the foisting of your own inanity onto the hapless psyches of anyone who is dumb enough to "follow" you.

Rant ends. Glenelg must have lost this week.

tl;dr

[Barto]

I have a twitter, haven't used it in probably two moths, and won't be going back...

Was funny following Charlie Sheen during his public self-destruction, some of the WWE guys were funny, but it's like a "read only" forum for me, as no-one was talking to me, I was only reading what others had to day.

Pretty much this. Have an account but anything of interest that is posted by famous people is quoted in the mainstream media anyways.

Like Wedgie said, it's good for sport updates.

[Dutchy]

Ive just recently got into it this year, but I use it for information purposes mainly. Sports, news and traffic updates mainly.

If something big has happened overnight I know it will be on my twitter feeds, I usually check it first thing in the morning and thats about it.

It is good if you want instant info on a subject, like a up to the minute google. For instance I drove past the Shell at Darlington a couple of weeks back and it was closed down with people everywhere, was wondering what happened so put "shell darlington" into the search field of twitter and within seconds I found out a car had crashed into the shop part of the servo and they were repairing it. Did a similar search when Hindley Street was closed a couple of months back also and found out it was a gas leak. It was handy for up to date info on the volcanic ash issues as I was flying for work at the time.

Certainly not into it for the celeb stuff but do follow a couple of footballers, Kelly Slater etc but if it annoys me I turn them off pretty quick

Just a few examples, I could certainly live without it but just find it a handy addition to get instant info/updates.

[Magpiespower]

A-lot of my filmmaker mates use social media as a cheap (free!) and effective way of building word of mouth about their upcoming films/TV shows and so on.

Actually, I'm often amazed by how many of them don't use it.

Nuts.

Twitter... Rant

#oldfart

[Pottsy]

magnitude unintelligible predicated prevalence narcissism irrelevant signal-to-noise ratio modulating foisting inanity hapless

No wonder you don't like Twitter. Wouldn't be able to fit a single bloody sentence in there!

[Dissident]

How much time do you have?

Enough

Assuming that your motivation for succumbing to this particular glass of digital Kool-aid is that you want to keep in touch with people, consider that:

- you can write nothing meaningful in 140 characters or less.
If somebody is worth communicating with, then they are worth committing the time and effort to do it properly. That means investing in a number of keystrokes an order of magnitude higher than 140. Condensing the description of your breakfast to fit in this limit can only B dun by lotsa SMS abrevns. Your message completely devoid of information, but this no longer matters since you have rendered it unintelligible.

"Glenelg lost this week"

It's often about the instant nature of it as well. Knowing something the instant it happens (within reason) is fun, and even beneficial. I wanted to know where Le Bron was going, it was tweeted the second he said it. I want to know if the server running SA Footy is down. I can - with twitter. Tech support/product updates/notifications are awesome with twitter. Combined with the fact you can integrate it with a website makes things a lot easier.

- Twitter is not private.
Anything you send via twitter is by default readable by anyone. If you have something personal to say to a particular individual then well and good, but so you really want to inflict this on the other 2,213 people who follow you? When you go on holidays to the Cayman islands for 2 weeks, why would you tell the entire internet "in Q at a/port. Brding in 10. Sun and sea here I come WOOOO"? Would it not be simpler to paint a big sign saying "THE KEYS ARE UNDER THE MAT, HELP YOURSELF" and nail it to your front door?

That's the idea. The concept. It's supposed to be readable by anyone by design. If you're stupid enough to post when you're away from home, there are other things in life you shouldn't be using. An iron. A car. An oven. Shoes. Updates about being away are more reserved for Facebook, and even then, within reason.

- Twitter is dumbing down the internet.
The use of "social media" dreck like twitter - and particularly facebook - is predicated on the fact that You Have Something Worth Saying, and the rest of the internet wants to hear you say it. This is, for the typical internet user, sheer fantasy. 99% of the human race would be better served by learning to STFU than open their gobs. The prevalence of tools like twitter merely serves to grow the fantasy of importance among internet users, breeding narcissism, filling the bandwidth with irrelevant effing "tweets". A billion voices wanting only to be heard, and not one capable of listening. The signal-to-noise ratio of the internet grows infintely smaller every day, and the reason is effing twitter and the likes of it.

With social media, comes social filtering. the only thing worse than meaningless updates are the meaningless people who DO want to see them. Just because the Internet has given the world a voice, doesn't mean you have to listen, and doesn't mean it's a bad thing.

- Twitter is impersonal.
You want to keep in touch with a computer-savvy friend? Sit down, clear your thoughts, open up an editor and compose him/her a lengthy email; tailored especially for the intended listener, modulating your thoughts to a wavelength that is personal to your intended recipient. Twitter offers NOTHING that is not already achievable via email - except the foisting of your own inanity onto the hapless psyches of anyone who is dumb enough to "follow" you.

No. You do both. I'll update things on social media. Yet I'll still compose a lengthy email to close friends/family. Apples and oranges. My sister just had a baby and she lives in Ballarat. I don't expect her to take time out to email me photos, or information about my nephew - but the fact she can take a photo of something in a moment, describe it and automatically have me see it at some stage that day is awesome.


Just my opinion, of course. I only wrote it here as it's more than 140 characters.

[Dirko]

I must admit I'm a twitter liker. I don't "tweet" often but have set up my account to get live feeds from Carlton, FOX Sports, 3AW Footy, Canberra Raiders, Derby County etc etc

Great for getting live scores through on my phone with a touch of commentary. Twitter is free to use on my phone plan which works well.