Why I Hate Twitter
18 January 2007 – 9:11 amTwitter, the strange but oddly addictive amalgamation of a message board, AIM, and text messaging has been making inroads into the affiliate marketing community thanks to the efforts of Sam Harrelson and Brian Littleton’s Twitter experiment at Affiliate Summit.
The basic concept is nothing new. Post ’shout outs’ and other people can see them, answering the simple question posed by Twitter, “What are you doing?”
If you share them publicly, anyone can see them. You can also make it such that only your friends can see your posts. Your friends are people who you have added to your profile, whom you’ve found through an invite, or through browsing through other users’ profiles ( here’s mine). You can send and receive messages in IM and even your mobile phone via text messaging.
It’s not for just major stuff like, “I’m standing at the altar in Las Vegas with a showgirl.”, but also random stuff like “waiting 45 minutes for a #$&*@ taxi.” It is a fun continual lifeline to your friends. “Awww, Scott’s getting hitched in Vegas”, or “Poor Scott, I hope it’s not raining”.
One of the best things about Twitter is that you can get updates to your phone. If you’re on the road, or just making a packy-run, you’re never far from your friends.
Twitter’s strength is also it’s greatest weakness.
Why?
It is irresistible to respond to people’s “twittering” and ultimately it turns into an IM conversation between two or three people. If I’ve enabled Twitter on my mobile phone, I’m the unwilling witness to long conversation between a few of my so-called friends. Clearly, they’re using Twitter’s web or IM interface and twittering back and forth in the comfort of their computer about dinner plans or something. My phone buzzes away with every post. Why are they doing this to me? Don’t they know they’re setting my phone off with every hit of the enter key?
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
To my friends: The next time you’re about to submit a message to twitter, please think to yourself. “Is this something that all 73 of my friends need to see?” And does what you’re writing actually answer the question, “what are you doing?”
Friends don’t let friends Twitter badly.
There is Some Relief in the Twitter Commands
The guys at Twitter have thought of a lot of stuff. If you haven’t already, you should familiarize yourself with the lingo and commands. You can send the following commands to twitter in IM and your mobile phone:
- get - gets the recent updates from all your friends
- get username - gets the recent updates from one friend
the most important commands…
- leave username - disables updates from one person
- leave all - turns off all updates
- off - disables twitter updates (seems redundant with leave all)
and if you’re feeling lonely…
- on - reverses an off command
- follow all - reverses the leave all
Twitter Commands that are Sorely Needed
But they haven’t thought of everything, I hereby submit the suggested commands to the guys at Twitter:
- batch n - batch my updates every n minutes.
- throttle on - if a conversation gets out of hand and I’m not in it, automatically batch the messages.
- to username - send a message only to a particular user
- chill username - suspend the updates from a particular user for some short period of time.
- zap username - send an electrical signal through the user’s texting device if they’re twittering out of control. Sort of like a dog bark collar. Requires the user to have the “Bluetooth Twitter Underwear Attachment”.
Do you have any twitter commands you’d like to see? Comment here.
BTW, If you want to add me to your friends list, here’s my twitter profile. I apologize in advance for my liberal use of the ‘off’ command.
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32 Responses to “Why I Hate Twitter”
Yes - very important to learn the commands.
I learned the “leave” and “off” quickly as often times conversations go on between two or three people, etc… It is fun to watch, but my phone battery can’t hold up!
Just as important, is for the Twitterererers to make sure to direct one way communications via the Direct Message where possible. Twitter only has this from the web interface right now but surely there is a command coming soon?!
Other things I would like to see….
1. Groups
2. (I second the choice for…) Zap
The experiment continues!
By Brian Littleton on Jan 18, 2007
‘Leave’ just sounds so final, doesn’t it? “Don’t LEAVE ME!”
By Scott on Jan 18, 2007
Zapping all!
By John Manoogian III (jm3) on Jan 18, 2007
My cousin, a college student, told me there’s a bar up by the Northwestern University campus, that actually broadcasts the last 100 public twitters on a projector screen. Talk about addicting.
By Carolyn Tang on Jan 18, 2007
I’ve been wondering why my twit’s been going off. I only just realized that my daughters added my cell phone to her twitter network.
If I could make this work for business I just might try to figure out how to use it.
By jeff barson on Jan 18, 2007
You can already send messages directly to a friend. Send D USERNAME message. Example: “D JANGRO you are wonderful”.
By Bon on Jan 18, 2007
ah, bon, bon!
they need to add that one to their help pages. thank you.
By Scott on Jan 18, 2007
“I’ve been wondering why my twit’s been going off.”
Ah nice one Jeff!
Scott you can add Twit to Tosh for your new British word, Twit meaning idiot… “Idiot Chat”…. I’ll now run for cover
By Chris Sanderson on Jan 18, 2007
Yeh, the “D Username Message” thing is very handy (I love being able to text my sister in England for the cost of a national text message). I was wondering why people don’t use it much, then I realised that I couldn’t find it on the actual site anywhere (I found the command by recieving a direct message and reading the reply instructions on that). I hope more people will start using this and stop filling up my inbox with “@Soandso …” updates.
Just make sure that you are using their username (twitter.com/USERNAME) and not the name they use on their page.
By Dan on Jan 19, 2007
Well, I’m one of those chatty chatters on twitter. Me and my friends there used to extend our twittering more than just “what am I doing now”. but “what am I thinking of now?”, “what am I telling dot dot dot now?”… etc.
we had one friend of ours complained, and then to me it didn’t seem to make sense.. Well, we are friends and we’d like to have fun in all ways.. so, what’s wrong withthat?!
YET, now, after my mobile got sms-s jam.. and I can’t get a single twitter update, not even direct messeges (till now). I understood what you mean guys by “twitter is for what you are doing now only, not another IM”!
But seriously speaking, i didn’t imagine Twitter to be that fun…
So, OK, i learnt my lesson the hard way out..
By Bluelue on Jan 19, 2007
Bluelue, well, the first step is admitting you have a problem.
I just think that people who don’t use twitter on their phone don’t understand. Lots of my friends seem to be turning it onto their phones lately, so they’ll start to get it.
Also, glad to see that the guys from Twitter are listening (and have a sense of humor). They mentioned this story on their blog.
By Scott on Jan 19, 2007
I am receiving the Direct Messages only on my mobile. Other updates are sent to my IM.
It’s a nice way to send SMS’s to people you don’t know - or don’t care to share - their mobile phone numbers.
By Tarek on Jan 19, 2007
You can also set up Twitter to nudge you if you haven’t updated in awhile, and you can also nudge other friends who haven’t updated in awhile.
By Dan J on Jan 25, 2007
Looks like Twitter have been listening Scott
Have you seen their latest newsletter? new features like sending direct messages etc
By Fraser Edwards on Feb 7, 2007
I don’t get the newsletter Fraser, but I know they’re listening. That’s good.
By Scott on Feb 7, 2007
At first i never really got that whole twitter thing, it got me saying stuff like wtf etc. But yeah, it does get you in a funny kind of way, and I do find myself logging in and out of it to see whats up and stuff. I disabled the phone IM thing, as that would have just driven me bananas!
Oops just noticed that this is an old old thread - duh, saw it in bumpzee and was curious…
By robwatts on Apr 27, 2007
that’s ok, Rob. It’s an oldie, but still gets read a lot.
By Scott on Apr 27, 2007
Thanks for the great tip. I’ve never used Twitter before, probably will try it out one of these days. For now, I will just stick with MSN or Skype for my IM needs.
By Cindy on Jun 2, 2007
Hi,
i must admit that i’ver never seen it this way.
But to succeed with making money online, i ‘d strongly advice that you get yourself a treasure map - a roadmap to Affiliate success …*-)
Michael
By Emarketscout on Mar 18, 2008