A month ago I posted a blog about starting to mess around and find out what Twitter is about. I have messed around for a month, starting Thursday, March 5, with 152 posts, or 4.34 posts each day on average. I have sent 45 @ messages, and have received 29. I am following 39 people, and am being followed by 27. I would quit my twitter account today, but for some potential projects in the future for which an account may be useful. Twitter is limited in two ways. There is not enough interaction with the people that I follow or who follow me. The posts are too short to be useful.
First, there is not enough interaction with the people that I follow to make it interesting. There are people being followed by tens of thousands of people. This may be what is called social networking, but it is all going one way. My definition of networking would include the expectation that information is flowing both ways. For some people, that would be alright in a limited way. For example, it would be interesting to require politicians to post. One of the big reasons that it isn't very interesting to me is that most of my family, friends and colleagues, if they are using social networking at all, are using Facebook, not Twitter.
The posts are too short to be useful is the second reason that it isn't interesting for me. Of the 18 posts on one page, 13 include urls. I don't have time to check out each url to see if it's worth reading. For example, one person I'm following, and a person who I think has valuable things to say normally, has posted, "I'm hungry. Watch out," and has attached a url. I have no idea what he is on about, and will not check to find out what the url is.
I will focus more of my networking time on writing longer pieces for my blogs and reading and commenting on blogs that are interesting and useful to me.
1 comment:
Hahahaha, I guess a tweet that starts with "I'm hungry" wouldn't get me to go click on the url either.
I think the networking part also depends on finding one person who finally leads you to a good group. I can give you the name of a few people that I've had nice education related conversatiosn with.
Another problem though... time differences. It's hard for me to ahve a conversation with you real time for example because we're not on at the same time (being across the globe may have something to do with it :-)). Plus, lately I haven't been on at all because of all my commitments with the end of the school year.
Oof, this was a long comment.
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