Shawn-Knight.net

Twitter… Who Cares!?

Social networking sites aren’t anything new, but some of the newer ones are just plain stupid. Example: Twitter.

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For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is an “update” system for your life… yeah, how lame is that? The whole purpose of the site/service is to allow you to make continual updates throughout the day of everything you are doing. You just ate a hamburger? That’s great. Going shopping or mowing the lawn? Congrats. Going fishing or simply watching TV? Hope you have fun. News flash: I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT YOUR DAILY ACTIVITIES!

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Umm… no, basic updates are not meaningful. Again, I don’t care that you are eating soup, running late to a meeting or partying. If you are running late to a meeting, the last thing you need to be doing is playing on your phone, updating your twitter. How about get in the car and drive to your meeting?! And, if you have enough free time to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing in their lives, well… that says a lot about what you are doing (or more so, NOT doing).

The only thing good about Twitter? It is a stalker’s dream come true.

Now, before you ask, I can already hear some people saying, “Well isn’t a blog essentially the same thing?”. No, not even close. Blog posts are meant to be informative and entertaining. I don’t publish posts unless there is some substance to it: humor, informative, educational, etc. I gain nothing by knowing you just washed your car.

Do you use Twitter? Surely I am not the only one that thinks this is one of the worst ideas ever…

Here are a few more related posts:

Twitter Video
Follow Me On Twitter
Twitter Fail

Comments

  1. lulugal11 Said,

    Ok, breathe in…good. Now let it out. Dude I had no idea you so very passionately hated Twitter.

    I use it but I don’t live and breathe for it. I actually have it set up with my blog feed so the people who follow me on Twitter but do not regularly go to my blog can see the post and decide if they want to scoot over to read. Other than that I think I tweet once a week when there is a big announcement or when I want to direct people to the blog.

    Twitter works well for some people…apparently ProBlogger is a big fan since he gets lots of traffic from it and he also gets ideas for posts etc. Now since we all can’t be probloggers and tweet and blog all day it won’t work for us….and yeah some of the stalkers love it because they really do want to know what you are having for lunch Right……At……..This…….Minute. :-)

  2. Tyler Ingram Said,

    Woah.. lol

    If you don’t care about someone else’s daily activities then you don’t have to follow them. I find Twitter fun and useful. I mean sure, I don’t care if you ate a hamburger, but it’s cool to know where you’re going and you want people to meet you there.

    It’s nice to promote blog posts when RSS aggregators (such as google) take forever to update. It is also a nice way to send people URLs of interesting websites too.

    I find that Facebook’s Status updates is similar to the way Twitter works though. The people who follow me on twitter or I follow on twitter aren’t part of my Facebook crowd. Just another way to keep in touch with people from a different industry I suppose.

  3. Stephen Said,

    I use twitter to drive traffic to my blogs. RSS and unique readers have jumped dramatically across the board. From an online marketing perspective, this is an EPIC Win, and not taking advantage of it, is, unfortunately, an EPIC Fail based on the results.

    I only follow the people I work with or who are friends I keep in contact with. It creates a sort of digital office environment, only the water cooler becomes twitter. I personally hope more people stalk me because that means more traffic more RSS, and ultimately, more money for me!

  4. Shawn Knight Said,

    I could see blog updates as a potential to drive more traffic, but as lulugal says, you probably won’t get much traffic unless you are doing it full time and have a ton of “friends”.

    Tyler - Yeah, I just still don’t get it. If I want someone to know where I am going to meet me (say, for dinner), I will simply call or text that person. What if a ton of people show up to an event that I only planned to be a small thing… or worse, what if people I don’t really care to hang out with keep showing up. Fail hah.

    Now that you mention it, yeah the Facebook thing is very similar… and I had the same thoughts about it. I’ve seen it on the dashboard whenever I log in, and I’ve yet to see a single update that I care about. It’s always “I’m studying at the library… I miss Jessica…. feed me, I’m hungry!”… maybe I’m just watching the boring people? hah

    Stephen - Do you Twitter just for your blog(s), or FutureLooks also?

  5. Stephen Said,

    You can follow follow Futurelooks and the team on our Twitter Channel…

    http://www.twitter.com/futurelooks

    Haven’t really promoted it yet. I only put up a logo on the site and still have to ad links elsewhere. With the success of my personal twitter channel, I should be able to get more followers with a few promotions.

  6. Kattikawn Said,

    Maybe you’d enjoy this Penny Arcade comic about the Twitter. ;)

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

  7. Thomas De Maesschalck Said,

    Never used Twitter and don’t really see the point of it either. Guess I’m not Web 2.0ish enough.

  8. Tyler Ingram Said,

    Kattikawn haha good ol’ Penny Arcade!

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