recently set one up for hackrifice because blogger has removed off site hosting and has hamstringed the hackrifice blog. hoping erik can get us back up and running on something else, and that we can get the twitter feed on the blog page as well.
any one else jumped on this since? evan, does the mass texting thing still work?
Does anyone else use twitter?
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hacksterbator
- Washed-Up Child Star
- Posts: 4141
- Joined: 12 Jul 2003 18:33
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I use twitter very rarely. The way I see it, it has two meaningful uses. Firstly you can use it to essentially chat with people about a live event. For example my favourite TV show at the moment is a show called Q and A which has a panel of different people being asked questions - usually a politician from each side of politics, and various academics or NGO people. When the show is on, people use the tag #qanda and chat about what's going on. This can be mildly interesting. The same occurred at the Global Atheist Convention I attended earlier in the year, and potentially we could have a tag for the world footbag championships.
The other meaningful use is one that I'm not very big on, but it explains why twitter gets so much attention, and that's marketing. Twitter is essentially free marketing, and because it got the reputation of being a very quick news source, it's especially good marketing for news organisations. It's a way for news websites to easily get their headlines out so that people go to their website. It's also great for politicians, NGOs, and, of course, corporations.
I've used the word "meaningful," but I think the big problem I have twitter is that it's very superficial. Most of the chats are really just people competing to come up with the funniest one liners. There is almost never any meaningful communication. The only time something useful gets says is when it's a link to something of greater depth, but almost all the time, I already have an RSS feed to their website, so it doesn't offer any information I wouldn't otherwise see.
On this topic, I'm growing increasingly opposed to facebook for mainly the same reason - superficiality. Facebook is probably even worse than twitter though, because I've come to rely on facebook for a number of organisations and communications with particular people. Because it is so ubiquitous that makes it useful, but it also makes it very hard to not participate in. Were it not for a handful of friends and 2 organisations in particular, I would quit facebook completely. These things make our lives more complicated, but only marginally better in some areas. Also I really don't care about any of the privacy stuff on facebook at all. If people want my information to market stuff at me, that's fine. I am so anti-marketing these days that doing that just helps me decide what things I wont buy.
My twitter account is owheelj if you want to follow me, although I make less than 1 post a month. I'm easy to find on facebook, because I'm the only person with my name
.
The other meaningful use is one that I'm not very big on, but it explains why twitter gets so much attention, and that's marketing. Twitter is essentially free marketing, and because it got the reputation of being a very quick news source, it's especially good marketing for news organisations. It's a way for news websites to easily get their headlines out so that people go to their website. It's also great for politicians, NGOs, and, of course, corporations.
I've used the word "meaningful," but I think the big problem I have twitter is that it's very superficial. Most of the chats are really just people competing to come up with the funniest one liners. There is almost never any meaningful communication. The only time something useful gets says is when it's a link to something of greater depth, but almost all the time, I already have an RSS feed to their website, so it doesn't offer any information I wouldn't otherwise see.
On this topic, I'm growing increasingly opposed to facebook for mainly the same reason - superficiality. Facebook is probably even worse than twitter though, because I've come to rely on facebook for a number of organisations and communications with particular people. Because it is so ubiquitous that makes it useful, but it also makes it very hard to not participate in. Were it not for a handful of friends and 2 organisations in particular, I would quit facebook completely. These things make our lives more complicated, but only marginally better in some areas. Also I really don't care about any of the privacy stuff on facebook at all. If people want my information to market stuff at me, that's fine. I am so anti-marketing these days that doing that just helps me decide what things I wont buy.
My twitter account is owheelj if you want to follow me, although I make less than 1 post a month. I'm easy to find on facebook, because I'm the only person with my name
.