Comments on: Please Make It Stop

By: Wolfy

Wolfy — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:19:27 +0000

Ari,

In bobs defense, sometimes the nuance of the social context of the twitter stream isn’t important and interactions and conversations are overrated. Search any of the tier 1 through tier 3 social media douchebags and you’ll find a lot of single reply conversations and very few regular conversations. We all have the people we like to talk to and play catch up with the rest.

I’m not going to follow anyone’s twitter account in an rss reader though.

I also have a second twitter account and i don’t give a rats red ass if jim follows it. I use it to filter out the good contacts from my main account so the people i feel i should follow don’t drown out the people i really want to follow. It’s private and I block people and don’t follow back people i don’t know even if i know who they are.

-M

By: bconrad

bconrad — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:23:20 +0000

I agree one must present a genuine front online, but, again, managing the large amounts of increasingly mindless information requires due diligence. Using RSS is but one way (of 10 I mentioned), and there’s no saying you can’t respond once you’ve read something in a reader — it’s just a way to isolate a stream for easier consumption than trying to filter hundreds of tweets from hundreds of people you follow.

By: Ari Adler

Ari Adler — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:14:01 +0000

There’s no doubt that people can delegate tasks, including having someone attend an event. I’ve attended events for bosses and reported back. They heard what happened, but had no idea of the context of what was really happening. They didn’t see the interactions occurring; they weren’t there and people knew it. My being there representing them counted, but not much.

It’s the same on Twitter, and why politicians and others who think it’s “the place to be” but never actually go there will never understand it and should be outed whenever possible.

By: bconrad

bconrad — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:03:33 +0000

People have been delegating tasks for eons, including going to an event in someone else’s stead. It’s one way to get things done efficiently.

By: Ari Adler

Ari Adler — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:52:03 +0000

Regarding #5…I hope no one new to Twitter believes it’s the way they should do things.

Having someone’s Twitter posts sent to a reader so you can read them on your schedule completely removes the social interaction and conversational tone of Twitter — which is what makes it so powerful in the first place.

What you suggest in #5 is akin to having someone attend a cocktail party for you and record all of the conversations going on. It’s not the same thing and should not be sold as such.

By: Jim_S

Jim_S — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:47:00 +0000

You’ve given me no choice but to stand by my previous statements and hope that no one notices my flawed logic and lack of reason.

By: bconrad

bconrad — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:01:34 +0000

You are exactly correct. Comparing apples to apples would inherently yield similar results. The idea with most research is to compare two (or more) things, one treated differently than the other, to see if in fact a difference exists.

By: Jim_S

Jim_S — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:23:19 +0000

I don’t know if the scientific method really jibes on this one. I think it also depends who you are relative to what your followers have an interest in … Lance Armstrong has a ridiculous # of followers and every time he posts a Twitpic he gets thousands and thousands of clicks (and if his bike is stolen, they put it on CNN!). Guy Kawasaki on the other hand spams the hell out of his followers and probably only gets a minimal response per link.

Soooo … does this test measure simply the number of people who will click a link when they see it? Ooooor, if you spent some time cultivating your new account, creating a reputation for good content, would you not see growth in click-throughs? … I just don’t know if this is apples to apples.

As an aside, I can’t say I participated in the test: If someone has more than one Twitter account, I will only follow one … not even Lance Armstrong can get me to follow two accounts.