Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

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JimBentley
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Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by JimBentley »

Advice required!

I've been on there about seven years and whilst it can be interesting if you follow people in whom you have an interest, it does seem to be a place for loudmouths who take hissy-fits if an opinion is expressed that they don't like. It's not like I do much there; some of what I write could, I suppose, be construed as provocative (but never rude or insulting, unlike much of the stuff I've had back).

I've been blocked by a number of people but have never blocked anyone myself. Do people just want an echo chamber, reflecting their views - and by extension - reinforcing them? Or are people just unusually thin-skinned on there? Or am I too thick-skinned?
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Mark Deeks
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Mark Deeks »

It's invaluable if you

a) have something to promote,
b) are funny/like jokes, or
c) write news/like news.

I have a Facebook and a Twitter like most trendsetters, and with only rare overlap, I use Facebook for personal stuff and Twitter for professional (basketball). The former is ideal for keeping up with friends, making new ones, debates (Facebook is what killed forums), meme sharing, life blogging, etc. The latter is ideal in my industry of choice. If I publish work, loads see it immediately, and loads more than I could ever reach see it via retweets etc. Similarly, by following the right people, I have instant access to a load of other great work. It is also great for "connecting" (that nebulous-sounding concept that is actually a thing, it turns out), and also good for debates in its own way, because it's an open forum. Great for the exchange of facts and thoughts, great during games for cursory analysis and amusing observations. Etc.

I totally get why Twitter can seem pointless and overrated if you haven't a target market, but from this side of the fence, it's really useful.
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Marc Meakin
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Marc Meakin »

This should be in the obvious thread
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Mark James
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Mark James »

Was never interested in it personally. Restricting yourself to 140 characters just seemed pointless. Don't see how you could have any worthwhile debate with such a low number to work with.

(wouldn't have been able to post the above for example)
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I've never really got Twitter to be honest. I think it's OK if you're a celebrity and you just want to fire off stuff to people, or if you're just a consumer of other people's tweets, but that's about it really.

It's not a very good forum for any sort of discussion or interaction. The 140-character thing was just a some stupid gimmick they came up (maybe as a joke) with at the start to make it like a text, but it's really restrictive and makes the whole thing a bit silly.

If you post something on your or someone else's "timeline" on Facebook, then there's a clear discussion thread available to everyone, but on Twitter it's just a bit of a mess. Someone might send a tweet to someone and then several people reply, but there's no co-ordination, and no simple way for someone to come along and make sense of it all as one discussion.

Also, while people often do reply to stuff on Facebook, unless you're a fairly big fish on Twitter, you're stuff is more likely to be ignored, even by your friends. It just isn't set up for discussion.
Mark Deeks wrote:Facebook is what killed forums)
And that's a real shame too. Facebook is nowhere near as good as forums for discussion. Discussion takes place on an individual person's "timeline", so there's always an asymmetry from the start, and you're never really sure who all the other people are and if you're wading into a "private" conversation. And when I want to discuss something online, I don't want to do it by announcing my opinion to everyone I've ever met.

It's also much harder to find old conversations, and they might get deleted if the person whose timeline it's on deletes it or deactivates their account or whatever. So yeah, it's OK for a brief two-line discussion, but for any more, something like C4C is infinitely superior.
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Jennifer Steadman »

It's incredibly useful for finding Countdown fans so you can direct them to a) Apterous and b) FOCAL. It occasionally works as well!
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by JimBentley »

Thanks folks (especially Mark D. for pointing out the good points whilst acknowledging the bad; I'd never really thought of it that way before).

The thing that worries me (although not overmuchly) is that certain groups of people seem to use it purely as an echo chamber. Anyone that disagrees with anything they say will be blocked, so they just end up having their (often quite odd) opinions reinforced, which makes them think that such opinions are popular, even if they're not. And so they get a view of the world that is purely their own, with no dissenting opinions allowed. Personally I don't follow accounts that I know will rile me (such as Katie Hopkins-style trolls), but I do like to follow coherent accounts that espouse views that I'm diametrically opposed to, just for balance.

Maybe that just because I enjoy arguing, I don't know really.
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Graeme Cole
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Graeme Cole »

Gavin Chipper wrote:I've never really got Twitter to be honest. I think it's OK if you're a celebrity and you just want to fire off stuff to people, or if you're just a consumer of other people's tweets, but that's about it really.

It's not a very good forum for any sort of discussion or interaction. The 140-character thing was just a some stupid gimmick they came up (maybe as a joke) with at the start to make it like a text, but it's really restrictive and makes the whole thing a bit silly.
The intention was that you could choose to receive certain tweets by SMS, where you have 160 characters, leaving 20 characters for the sender's name or whatever. This reasoning is long obsolete, but I like the character limit for other reasons. It forces you to get to the point and remove any unnecessary waffle. If Twitter allowed longer tweets, you'd end up with the Twitter equivalent of those YouTube videos that make you shout "GET ON WITH IT!" at the screen. You'd give up reading some tweets half way through, or worse, people would feel the need to write clickbaity introductions to their tweet like "They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw --click for more--".
Gavin Chipper wrote:
Mark Deeks wrote:Facebook is what killed forums)
And that's a real shame too. Facebook is nowhere near as good as forums for discussion. Discussion takes place on an individual person's "timeline", so there's always an asymmetry from the start, and you're never really sure who all the other people are and if you're wading into a "private" conversation. And when I want to discuss something online, I don't want to do it by announcing my opinion to everyone I've ever met.

It's also much harder to find old conversations, and they might get deleted if the person whose timeline it's on deletes it or deactivates their account or whatever. So yeah, it's OK for a brief two-line discussion, but for any more, something like C4C is infinitely superior.
I agree that forums are technically superior to Facebook for forum-like discussions, but such discussions don't have to take place on somebody's Timeline. There are Facebook "groups". For example, I'm a member of the Quiz Discussion Group, the Only Connect Questions group and the Countdown Discussion Group. They work like Timelines that don't belong to a person.
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Graeme Cole wrote:I agree that forums are technically superior to Facebook for forum-like discussions, but such discussions don't have to take place on somebody's Timeline. There are Facebook "groups". For example, I'm a member of the Quiz Discussion Group, the Only Connect Questions group and the Countdown Discussion Group. They work like Timelines that don't belong to a person.
I still find them annoying and less usable.
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JimBentley
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by JimBentley »

Graeme Cole wrote:It forces you to get to the point and remove any unnecessary waffle.
I must say that's the one thing that I like about it. On the rare occasions that I want to make a serious point, I quite enjoy typing out what I want to say, then editing it down to fit without losing the point (relatedly, is précis still an exercise in secondary level English lessons anymore? It was on its way out when I was at school all those years ago, but we still did some of it and I got quite good at editing in that way). Of course, outside of Twitter I rarely bother editing the extraneous stuff, which I suppose is why most of my posts on here often ramble on incoherently.
Mark Deeks wrote:Facebook is what killed forums
Absolutely I agree, but both are - to a degree - walled gardens. The thing is that I think that forums are far superior for discussing specific issues; maybe because I'm old and stupid and not really part of the Facebook generation, but Facebook discussion threads do seem to tend to get rapidly derailed, ending up with just a mass of gratuitous, unwarranted insults which have no relation to the issue under discussion. I find forum discussions far more likely to stay on topic (although certain people - myself included - are certainly guilty of taking some threads in bizarre directions).
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by David Williams »

JimBentley wrote:. . . . . . . . . . I quite enjoy typing out what I want to say, then editing it down to fit without losing the point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Try harder
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JimBentley
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Re: Twitter: Is it just a load of crap?

Post by JimBentley »

David Williams wrote:
JimBentley wrote:. . . . . . . . . . I quite enjoy typing out what I want to say, then editing it down to fit without losing the point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Try harder
I enjoy editing complex points.
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