Comments on: Time Out Twitter Haters

By: joey

joey — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:35:29 +0000

The problem with twitter is, it was not invented for a purpose or a purpose in mind. Take anything like email, IM, even you tube, craigslist etc. they were started for a purpose. People understood why they are using them, and - easily. Look at twitter. Tell me what is the purpose behind twitter. It was found by a bunch of crappers. If they can make twitter useful for something then it is good otherwise its waste. Look at http://www.istwittercrap.com for yourself.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:39:29 +0000

I still don’t get the allure of Twitter. I’m a new member just checking it out. It seems to me like a bunch of people with too much time on their hands. I mean, WHY would I want people “following” me? More importantly, WHY would I want to bother logging into a website to see what other people are doing “right now” a.k.a “following them”.
Get a life…..

By: Raj

Raj — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:59:09 +0000

Good article.

Like Scott, I initially joined twitter, and soon I was confused. What questions me is, why can I not do this in Facebook? Granted, the interface is a little different. Little. If Facebook lets you “follow” + allow a wider network, where would twitter stand then?

I see twitter similar to chat clients such as MIRC and ICQ, where the fundamental idea is great but is not broad enough to stay sustainable.

Raj

By: Scott Witthaus

Scott Witthaus — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:02:25 +0000

Hey Sriram and Dan –

You both make very good points which I respect. My point is that for many people outside of the “Tweetosphere”, communication is more than almost constant 140 character messages. I am also seeing a “pushback” from the 24/7/365 information (much of it trivial) overload where people want to return more to their “analog” lives (phone calls, letters, books, etc). I also wonder when Twitter becomes so commercialized and “establishment” that members liken the service to solicitation phone calls and look for the next “big thing”.

respectfully –

Scott Witthaus

By: Sriram Venkitachalam

Sriram Venkitachalam — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:24:08 +0000

Hey Dan, sure, twitter is a lot like a chat room that one can plug-in to at one’s own convenience and thread a new conversation at any time.

I think the presentation of a well rounded personality as opposed a sculpted personality is one of the advantages to look forward to. Knowing someone well I’m sure aids better and frank conversations.

As far as transparency is concerned, there will be some who will be on one extreme, others more controlled. But I’m certainly liking that we’re seeing humans more directly behind brands. I’m amazed how these guys manage to reply to questions so quickly on twitter.

By: Daniel Schutzsmith

Daniel Schutzsmith — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:45:55 +0000

Very interesting points Sriram and thanks so much for verbalizing much of what I have been thinking about lately as well. I completely agree with you that much of the hype on “why twitter sucks” seems to be coming from those who don’t understand how it has transformed communication. I’d easily say its become more similar to a chat room than instant messenger or even facebook status’.

The thing I would note is that I’ve felt that my tweets, being an eclectic mix of personal and business updates, is meant to give anyone who follows me a nice, rounded understanding of who I am and what I am all about. For the most part, I don’t hide who I am, what I believe in, how I do business, what my interests are, etc… For this, I really feel that I’ve received some great feedback and even relationships from Twitter. Its allowed me to find folks that I never would have otherwise crossed paths with.

For better or for worse, I think folks in the web, design, advertising, and marketing industries are going to have to get comfortable with twitter and understand that the new frontier of business is going to be complete transparency.

By: Sriram Venkitachalam

Sriram Venkitachalam — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:18:11 +0000

Hey Scott, I will agree that the ratio of good to bs is not very good. I’m sure we all feel very well connected with email, texts and ims. I think as far as digital web innovation is concerned we’re at a stage of marginal improvements, so the ratio of added benefit to new tech development is also in the low fractions; none of this is very profound. But I’m still willing to take some of that.

A derivative of twitter is http://www.TwitterJobSearch.com . Yes, most of these jobs are posted on websites like monster.com or indeed.com aor linkedin, and the website is just an aggregation of these jobs, with the added feature of immediacy. Is it the difference that monster.com made when it first came up, by no means. But does it give me access to the job poster+does it tell me immediately as a job is posted+does it expose me to a lot of postings quickly? Yes, it’s marginally better. So I’m buying it.

I also agree that with twitter there is a huge bubble of expectation, most of us are doing things on twitter expecting something amazing is going to happen. Eventually we’ll know the answer of what works and what doesn’t; there will be more pragmatism.

By: Scott Witthaus

Scott Witthaus — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:16:43 +0000

Interesting post. I am one of those that tried Twitter and found the BS to “good stuff” ratio was too high, so I quit. Between e-mail, text messages, IM’s and Linked In, I feel thoroughly connected with no need to add more “cyber static” to my life, which is what the majority or “tweets” seem to be. Nice article however.