Comments on: Twitter distracts and annoys: yes or no?

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:42:05 +0000

Mary Ann– Also, regarding the confusion of who you’re talking to, that’s an interesting phenomenon that I have thought about too. Sometimes I am talking directly to my followers, most of whom are fellow designers, to give a tip or bit of advice about a design-related matter. Other times, I feel like I am talking to myself, as though I were writing an observation in a journal, or thinking out loud. When you read a collection of other people’s tweets, it makes for an interesting mix of the two. If I were to draw a cartoon of it, I’d do a crowd of birds, each on their own branch, some of them with speech bubbles and others with thought bubbles.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:36:48 +0000

David and Mary Ann, I understand both your points. Twitter can be as useless and time-wasting as you want to make it, just like any medium can. I would no more want to listen to vapid blather on Twitter than I would if I were listening to it in person. Of course, the beauty of Twitter is that you don’t have to spend any time on the boring stuff– you can simply not read it, or “unfollow” people who don’t interest you.

Having been in the “Twitterverse” for a couple of months now, and having chosen the people to follow who offer something of value to me (tips, links, insights, levity, compassion, cameraderie), I find it to be very worth it. Not every tweet is always business-related, but humans aren’t all business all the time either. It’s kind of nice to get a glimpse of the human behind the curtain. I still do it primarily to grow in my business, but the side benefit of feeling a connection with other people that do what you do is a bonus to me as well.

I think that you can customize it to serve the purpose you want it to fill. It’s easy to write it off as uesless, but to do that is to write off a viable and powerful medium of communication.

By: Mary Ann Stewart

Mary Ann Stewart — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:22:54 +0000

I have decidedly mixed feelings. As used by most, it is a time waster of huge magnitude, just as email or mindless surfing can be.
The narcissism is probably present in a lot of the messages like “think I might make myself a cup of tea.”
These brain droppings are irritating.

Also the 140 characters are irritating, as they are like the “teasers” in the news media, little one liners that leave you hanging. No substance, no depth. Like sound bites or out-of-context buzz words like the talking heads on TV enjoy parroting ad nauseum. Vapid, boring. A day spent twittering is a day not spent delving into a good book or watching a play, with some real dialogue, or better still, some real conversation with real human beings that are responding in real time to the real you.

As for business use, the jury is still out for me, as I am a twittering novice. I hate the confinement of 140 characters: like those ads or forms you have to fill out describing your business in 25 words or less. But it does challenge you to express your thoughts or deeds with some relevance and concision, and spare others your trivia. So maybe it serves a therapeutic purpose, if one self-censures or self-edits. I am still confused about who I am talking to, and what might be of interest to my so-called “followers” (a flattering but laughable term, like one’s own little “groupies”).

Perhaps the biggest potential benefit is in locating individuals with whom you can communicate directly and in more depth about a common interest. Where you are NOT limited to 140 characters.

Wouldn’t it be a funny Saturday Night Live skit to have a Twitter convention, where all conversation was tweeted in 140 character sound bites! Unfortunately, our concentration spans and thought processes are probably trending toward “twitterisms” anyway so the skit might be too close to reality to be funny.

By: David McClure

David McClure — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:38:48 +0000

Twitter is the same as any other tool used in business; it can used or mis-used. Unfortunately, it is all to often mis-used. It is all too often used to disseminate trivia that almost no one has the slightest interest in, and certainly doesn’t do anything to improve your business.

Too many people are stroking their shallow egos in the mindless pursuit of followers, rather than doing something productive that might just help their business, or heaven forbid, their clients.

Twitter does have valid business uses. For example, a restaurant can use Twitter to good effect by appraising customers of today’s specials, or tonight’s live music.

I think some very basic principals need to be applied when using Twitter. Before spending time embarking on a tweet, ask yourself a very simple question – How does this help my clients/customers, or how does this improve my business? I realise a tweet shouldn’t take long to compose (thank heavens they’re limited to 140 characters), but consider this. How long do you spend on all Twitter activities, and could this time be spent more productively in my business doing something else.

These comments are equally applicable to blogging. Used correctly it is another useful tool in a business’ repertoire; used badly it is at best, a waste of time.