February 29, 2008
my increasingly twitter’d world
[follow me on twitter]
[In case you haven’t figured this out already:] Besides my blog and my e-mail account, the other main tool I use to communicate with the online world is Twitter [I don’t really use Facebook anymore, but that’s a story for another day].
The general M.O. these days is, I use gapingvoid for publishing my cartoons and my more permanent, “archival” written stuff. Twitter I use for the ephemeral, day-to-day stuff. Like the restaurants I’m eating in, the people I’m hanging out with, the bars I’m drinking in, or the blog articles I’m reading at the moment. And I’d much rather get a Twitter message from you than an e-mail, and I’d much rather send you a message on Twitter than send you an e-mail.
Yesterday, I joked on Twitter, “Note to World: If you’re not on Twitter, I don’t want to make friends with you.” Like all humor, there is some truth to it. I find people who use Twitter much easier to communicate with, than with people who don’t. As a result, Twitter has become the main engine I use these days for cultivating my social network. I’m not saying it’s the best thing out there, I’m not saying it’s the only thing out there, I’m just saying that it’s currently working rather well for me.
[In Conclusion:] Twitter is now the best way of [a] keeping up with what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis and [b] getting my attention. So I hope you’ll follow me on Twitter, and start using it yourself as well, if you’re not doing so already. Thanks.
[PS. If you wish to borrow that wee “birdie” icon for your own Twitter needs or whatever, go right ahead. Rock on.]
I’ve been following you for a while on Twitter and really warming up to the service as a whole. I’m trying to extend my network as well so any new followers are welcome:
http://twitter.com/jwesley
I’ll be sure to follow back.
I’ve noticed the same thing with my own communication habits lately. The combination of profound and trivial posts from people I respect gives me a much better insight into who they really are. It’s an instant connection to your network that is too distant with blogs, and too bogged down in spam for Facebook.
@gapingvoid yes twitter is quite addictive — you read ideas, meet people and .. learn new things like your favorite restaurants — besides I believe, is the ‘lightest’ most portable SN tool there is thus far — the rests like FB, MySpace etc can be quite heavy — you spend too much time there, and end up doing nothing much really.
Some argue otherwise, but I find much value in tweets of what people are THINKING about, rather than just doing @ the moment. I like that a lot about Evelyn Rodriguez, Dave Weinberger, yourself…Short, to the point, condensed “twittsights” I wish my offline friends used it more, given that I’m from Spain and live in Puerto Rico.
I feel the same way about twitter. it’s an international water cooler and a great way to find out what people i respect and like are up to without all the zombie hugs and other facebook junk.
the value is in what people I follow are thinking,researching, reading, writing. and i love that thoughts have to come down to 140 characters. it makes tweeting that much more fun.
oh my, i feel a tweet coming on. :>)
Fully agree with everything above. Yet, in the past I didn’t even notice I lived in Finland when communicating and following the interesting people in my field regardless of where they resided, but when it comes to ‘microblogging’ here in Finland we have mostly adopted Jaiku instead of Twitter, which changes things.
I don’t have anything against Twitter, but all my closest contacts are in Jaiku. Regardless, I would love to continue follow the fascinating discussions that have enriched and changed my life forever. But as Hugh points out nowadays many of those discussions take place in Twitter along with the blogs. And even though we have similarly remarkable conversations in Jaiku, I hate to miss out people like Hugh. And being the lazy person I am, I just can’t see myself following two different microblog platforms, and engaging with both. I would love to see these two great services, namely Jaiku and Twitter, being able to talk to each other. I end my rant here, but if some of you are smart enough to come up with a solution, please let me know. Thanks.
Ville, in many ways I prefer the Jaiku to Twitter [and I’m a big, big personal fan of Jaiku’s founder, Jyri Engestrom].
However the reality is, all my friends are on Twitter, not Jaiku. So that’s where I go. Same reason you go to Jaiku etc. Fair enough.
I just don’t get it. But, then again, I am probably your absolutely least tech savvy reader. I just ain’t hip! So I guess, Hugh, we aren’t destined to be friends! (sigh!)
I wanna hear your “story for another day” about Facebook.
(I hate Facebook.)
Hugh,
What about http://friendfeed.com/gapingvoid?
It would be even easier to follow you on Twitter, your blog, flickr, etc. all together
my friends and colleagues use the mobile version of Facebook in a similar way to people using twitter, since it focuses on status updates rather than the spam applications. Many people are updating or checking other people’s status three or four times a day.
However, I realise that FB was not designed for this, so I suspect a migration to a more specialised platform may take place if FB does not update itself to match more closely with this behaviour pattern.
I use Twitter all the time, and used to follow you there for some time. However, I replied to your Tweets and sent you several messages via Twitter but never received a reply. I know you have over 3000 followers on Twitter, and with numbers that large, it makes 2-way communication much more challenging so you probably did not even see my questions or responses. With that said, I will still follow your blog as I can leave a response that I know you will see.
Hugh, fully understand
Yeah, don’t know Jyri personally that well, but what I know he’s a great guy and took time to help out a total stranger back in the day, namely me. I should ask whether Jyri & the guys at Jaiku could make it possible to subscribe to Twitter feeds. Actually will do it right away …maybe you could do the same with the Twitter people if they could make it possible to subscribe Jaiku feeds. Who knows, maybe they look into it 
Six months ago I loved FB. Now I’m in rehab. Spent a day in a FB 12 step program and have now deleted all the stoopid Drink, Zombie, Poke apps that were sending me emails. At least LinkedIn doesn’t send you an email every time somebody farts. And Twitter…we’ll see. Feel free to follow me and see if I pass any gas.
Only problem-ette with Twitter, which I’ve been using for a while; you can’t DM people who aren’t following you already.
OK, that’s a problem for me and the other stalkers, probably less of a problem for you!
»I find people who use Twitter much easier to communicate with< You’re right. And a predisposition to communication is how this network self-selects itself. But shouldn’t communication give a lot of emphasis to communicating with those who are less easy to communicate with? It’s that extension-of-the-network that I find particularly difficult with Twitter. See http://www.emmamulqueeny.com for some interesting debate on this.
Paul Clarke, to paraphrase Mike Arrington, if you’ve got a better idea, don’t tell me about it, build it!
I actually responded to an entry made about this post but I thought it was a valid contribution to the general thread of debate here:
The general feel I have for services like Twitter is that they provide a very easy and very simple way to get the information and thoughts out there for people who don’t want the responsibility of running a blog, want to avoid the invasive data-mining of the social network and very quickly fire off something witty, something silly, something topical or genuinely answer that all important Twitter question… What are they doing?
It is the amazingly simple user imagined uses for the Twitter service that provide it power, the ease and vigour with which old media companies allowed their fresh blood (The poor people tasked with taking them safely into the dangerous ocean of the new media)to ride the waves or at the very least test the waters with a big toe.
Services that have grown from Twitter constantly appear on very handy blogs like Lifehacker. I personally like the example of TwitterLit which Tweets the first line of books, as a voracious reader the potential for spontaneity in book selections intrigues me… I am amazed by the lines which draw me to a book and those which fall flat.
Then again I didn’t realise I had an opinion worth voicing on the matter. I have not seen as many useful applications of the other services by talented and imaginative users. The other services seem to bloat the issue with audio and video inclusions… I think they miss what makes it so appealing… It is the beauty of the 140 characters and a simple @.
Holy crap Hugh, are we meant to be able to read that twitter page?!!
Oh come on Hugh. You got a huge audience for your blog. I love your posts I get in my reader and now you want me to follow you somewhere else?
You already got our attention and permission, don’t neglect us laggards who don’t use twitter
F.
hello,
you have been taggued by a quiet but greatful reader from Paris. I am not sure if this is on in the US right now, but the idea is to list 6 (embarrassing) details about yourself and tag 6 of your favorite blog in return.
gasper
Hugh, you are such a tease!
[I don’t really use Facebook anymore, but that’s a story for another day].
I echo calls for your thoughts on Facebook. If you have to, twitter it to us
This post spurred me to resurrect my dormant account and give Twitter one last try (again!) So far, so good — watching the SXSW coverage I’m starting to get a feel for the ‘point’ of it.
I don’t suppose that any friendly creative types have turned Hugh’s Twitter logo into an easy to add widget have they?!
Twitter was my intro into social media. I’m hooked. I like the randomness off it and ease of connecting with others. And it’s fun to get tweets from some of my fav bloggers. Cheers.