Twitter no more...

[sleigh]

Having played with Twitter for a month or so now, I'm finding that I'm not all that interested in everybody's tweets, nor do I bother to tweet much myself. The character imitation makes everything feel shallow and superficial to me, and far too many of the posts are of the "I'm eating chicken for dinner" variety, which bore me entirely. At this point, I think I'll simply let Twitter lie fallow for a week or so, see if I miss it (I expect not to miss it at all), and then close the account...

Anyone want to argue for staying active on Twitter? Am I missing something?

Comments

[msagara.livejournal.com]

Probably not. I like it because I work at the computer and every so often someone will post something or link something that's interesting, but that doesn't eat 45 minutes of time. I don't work to music; I don't work to radio or TV or noise; I can't.

But I can work to the background 'noise' of people going about their daily business, and occasionally, I'll throw out a short comment (because, of course, 140 characters) in response. It's a window into the boring/amusing/mundane bits of life, but it's not a door; I'm not tempted to read 35 linked pieces and to write 2,000 words of thoughtful response.

And I can well imagine that this would bore anyone else.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Hee hee hee ... Michelle chatters/twitters ... hee hee hee!

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I think my initial response (ahem) was the same as sleigh's: I expected it to be something like the rest of the internet, or rather, what the rest of the internet has that I actively look for, and I could not see anything of interest or substance being said in 140 characters.

But I've found that I like the very minor sense of connection to the outside world, because I am often so very internal and inward looking when in my cave, and it pulls me back to the surface for a bit. It's like listening to conversations on the bus, or in the grocery store, or ... anywhere.

Otoh, I'll remember that you were laughing about this when I see you in Montreal...

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I recall you were quite dismissive of Twitter at ConClave; this is what amuses me. :)

For msagara and sleigh: I'm curious to know if Facebook is somewhere in the middle of LJ and Twitter, or not at all related/relevant.

Also, does sleigh have a fan club on FB, like msagara?

[msagara.livejournal.com]

Facebook and Twitter are more alike, to me -- but the constant stream of everyone else's quiz results make me crazy, some days. I realize that they're fun for the people who do them -- but I spend so much time "hiding" apps when I check my status list.

Twitter is like the status without the apps.

However... Facebook does allow a conversation to congregate in a way that people can actually read; the @replies on Twitter make that a lot harder.

Overall, when I have time, I really like LJ.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I think, yeah, Facebook is somewhere in-between. It doesn't encourage 'conversation' the way the LJ 'post-and-comments' structure does. You can't say anything terrifically lengthy (but you have far less restriction on that than Twitter). I have my LJ journal tied to Facebook as "Notes" but no one seems to pay any attention to the notes on Facebook, seeing as I have almost no comments there. On the other hand, Facebook has been responsible for me reconnecting with several people with whom I'd lost touch, as well as people who aren't on LJ.

"Stephen Leigh" has a regular page on Facebook; "S.L. Farrell" has a fan page...

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

Nope!

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

The character imitation makes everything feel shallow and superficial to me

-->I had to chuckle at this typo, because it still made a sentence of perfect sense, via the multiple meanings of "character." Crom, how I love the English language.

[gundo.livejournal.com]

Would it help if I had chicken for lunch instead...?

[gundo.livejournal.com]

In a less smart-alecky way, I really like Plurk. The fact that it has threads and a timeline you can actually scroll makes it much more useful.

[greenmtnboy18.livejournal.com]

There is nothing about Twitter that has even peaked my interest. It sounded unappetizing to me from the get go. Too much random information, of a decidedly uninteresting nature.

Which is not to say I'm not interested in my friends. I LOVE random posts on LJ for exactly that reason -- I love the little windows into someone's life, esp someone I am close to who is geographically far away.

But Twitter feels... different, in that it's short little one liners that really fall into the "I so don't care" category.

On the other hand, I really shouldn't respond to "am I missing something?" on this topic, because I haven't actually signed up and tried it. Just that the connections I've seen to it have ALL been the "having chicken for dinner" kind of thing.

w00t!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Peaked may well be the right word! ;-)

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

I'll do what I always do when someone asks about Twitter.

I have a Twitter account, I follow a few people, sometimes I think to turn Tweetdeck on. It's mostly irritating to me.

That having been said, I don't dislike the "microblogging" concept, so I hang out at Plurk (http://www.plurk.com/born2me). It's a very social social network, Twitter-esque, but threaded. It tends to be a little deeper than "I had chicken for dinner" because others can chime in about chicken in threads, which makes it like abbreviated LJ. I've met a lot of great people there, so I always mention it as an alternative.

(Now I notice that gundo has already mentioned it... the timeline aspect is also very nice and makes it better than Twitter, IMHO.)

[lindajdunn.livejournal.com]

I've followed some roller derby bouts (away games) on twitter and appreciated the play-by-play that I couldn't get elsewhere but otherwise, I've found nothing of interest.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

I'm staying on because a couple of my friends are *only* on Twitter and it makes it easier to stay in touch. Plus some of the feeds are amusing (stephenfry, hodgman, johncleese, thelordalmighty). I've also seen some amusing stuff from the clips people post. It's not so much fun for me, though, given the time change - for much of my day, no one would see anything I tweet because they're asleep so I save any good links to post in my morning.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

I find that I'm browsing Twitter for folks that I am a "fan" of, rather than my friends, and that I am looking for semi-news items, rather than chatter.

That is, it's interesting when the pro cyclists post links to YouTube selections of the ends of various races, and when various authors and musicians (hint, hint) post about where they will be signing or performing. In your case, I think you should keep the feed active, and post about once a week about where you'll be appearing in the next month or two. Let us know if anything exciting - like a book release or a story in a magazine - happens.

[mrcleanhead.livejournal.com]

Amen, Brother Leigh! It just seems so distracted, inane, and an enormous waste of time. It's like watching Buddhist Monkey Mind in print.

[rarelylynne.livejournal.com]

I find it useful, mostly for passing along links for my work. I follow both library/archives folks, and SF folks, and they tend to be interesting. I get much of my breaking SF/Library/Archival news this way.

(I'm "lynnemthomas" on Twitter if you're curious).

I try hard not to tweet about my dinner unless it's really spectacularly noteworthy. Taco night, not so much.