my increasingly twitter'd world

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.

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.

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.

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!)

Hugh,
What about http://friendfeed.com/gapingvoid?
It would be even easier to follow you on Twitter, your blog, flickr, etc. all together

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.

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.

>>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.

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 @.

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.

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 😉

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.