Twitter - Do you use it?

Is it just a fly by night bit of fun or do people think it will stick around? I have to admit I've found it to be partly useful and partly annoying. Thoughts?

Where ya been, son?

i didn't understand the attraction for a long time... then I just thought it stupid.

Now i have a twitter client open all day long, and frequently check in on some folks. Some authors, some tech geeks, some actors, some friends. by only following a small set of people (about 20 in my case), i find it manageable and not too intrusive.

will it last? who knows? I didn't think rap music would survive more than a few years... shows what I know about predicting things.

It has been discussed a few times in here. I am too lazy to do the search to get links.

I use it a lot. Some people who follow me complain that I tweet too much. I tell them to unfollow me than.

There are a bunch of the JavaRanch folks on twitter.

Now that Oprah is on it [as of last week?], there are a bunch of Oprah fans using it. A study also showed that it is not the younger folks using it, it is the middle age folks that are.

Eric

Twitter is evil. It gets talked about constantly in the tech world. Sure sign that its a fad. Can't wait for it to go away.

I'd consider myself "middle-aged" I guess... depending on how long I live.

I don't twitter, MySpace, or FaceBook... if I want to talk to someone then I email them or they me. I guess I just don't care enough what other people are doing on a daily basis. I hardly care about events in my own life, now I'm supposed to let others know about them as well? No thanks, not interested.

Most people do not post what they are doing 100% of the time. Only reasons I normally do that is for the guys I work with. I talk with the local news guys on Twitter, I follow what some open source libraries are doing, I follow a couple of famous people for kicks, I follow friends to see what they are doing, and I follow some other news feeds.

I actually get to more interesting information quicker with twitter than I do on some of the major sites out there.

With our busy lives do you have time to call all your friends every day and see what they are up to? I doubt it. Services like Facebook and twitter let you keep in touch with people. Sure a phone call is a lot better, I yell at my wife texting all the time to her friend when I said a 30 second phone call could be quicker!

I first looked at Twitter as a waste of time. I had the same attitudes as most people here, than I started using it and become addicted to it.

Now a service I am trying to adjust to is friendfeed, I am still not sure about that one.

I personally say sign up and follow some of the ranchers that are on it. Update as little or often as you want. If you do not like it, than just ignore it like you do with your 20 email accounts that you opened and never touch!

Eric

Put me in the curmudgeon crowd. I avoid the whole social-networking thing like the plague.

I like being left alone. I don't even like having a mobile phone, but have one out of necessity.

If I want to know what someone is doing, I'll ask them. If I want them to know what I'm doing, I'll tell them.

And get the hell off my lawn!

Bear Bibeault wrote:Put me in the curmudgeon crowd. I avoid the whole social-networking thing like the plague.

I like being left alone. I don't even like having a mobile phone, but have one out of necessity.

If I want to know what someone is doing, I'll ask them. If I want them to know what I'm doing, I'll tell them.

And get the hell off my lawn!

You probably code in a room with the shades closed and all of the lights covered up. Only light is the radiation from the green text from your monochrome monitor.

You still use floppy disks?

Eric

Oh, just because I'm a curmudgeon, doesn't mean I'm not up on all the latest technology. Quite the opposite.

I just couldn't tell you -- because I don't know -- when the last time my friend Tim passed gas.

Well, I'm not a regular poster on twitter, but I'm posting there on some "special situations" only. Each time I visit twitter, I can see a lot of posts from Eric.

Devaka.

Without twitter I would have not seen this story about Steven Hawking being rush to hospital: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345574,00.asp

Interesting thing you can see from my life with twitter stats: http://tweetstats.com/graphs/epascarello You can see when I sleep and go home from work. lol

Eric

I have a Twitter account, but I never tweeted anything. To my surprise, a few people subscribed to my Twitter feed. I have no idea who they are and why they would subscribe to my Twitter feed - there's nothing to see there.

Jesper Young wrote:I have a Twitter account, but I never tweeted anything.

That is the best way to use Twitter. Keep it up.

Devaka.

Bear, you sound just like me, lol. I don't even have a cellular phone.... people can either reach me at work or at home. If I am in neither place then chances are I don't want to be bothered. I usually email friends/family once a week and other then that I have my own family I see on a daily basis and they always know where I am and how to reach me if needed.

I am curious though so I may just check it out so I know what people are talking about but I highly doubt I'll become a.... what do you call it... a twit?

Brian Legg wrote:...what do you call it... a twit?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4EoN4nr5FQ

Eric

I use Orkut mostly. thats enough for me.

I have tried it, but don't understand why people like it. Now I don't use it anymore.

I have trouble with Twitter, and Twitter has trouble with me.

We tried setting up an account to promote an event, but we can't get followers because we're not showing up in searches. According to Twitter support, this is a common problem for accounts created within the past 8 weeks, and they don't have a solution.

No offense, but I don't use twitter, facebook, orkut or any social networking sites now.. Used to have an orkut account way back, but I started spending more time on it so I forced myself to quit it... I believe they hinder talking (i mean really talking) to each other and also they suck you in sometimes like in my case

what a waste of time

I'd never use it because i don't like the name. It's only one letter away from hermaphrodite in german (Zwitter).
I don't know any statistics about it, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was less popular in Austria, Swiss and Germany than in other countries.
cb