Twitter is hot, it's a fact. Yet I don't seem to realise what the point of Twitter is... I've been following the news around it for over 2 years. The basic, which is the "What are you doing?" seems to be far from the main feature nowadays. Also, isn't it easier to use Facebook for that, considering you'll probably have your friends added there already? Now as far as I can understand, it's mostly used for the latest news nowadays. But doesn't it completely overlap with the good old (and less limited) RSS feeds??
There's stuff like CNN's breaking news there, I already got that added to my RSS feeds... As for the others; they either have, or could have, RSS feeds instead. Is the point of Twitter just to make it easier for people to have something similar as RSS feeds and thus, Twitter serves the same purpose?
I also never "understood" twitter. Maybe I should just register and toy with it, but I'm lazy Some words from twitter experts?
http://monitter.com/ That's very useful for search. Right now I have scrolling columns on the searches for 'toucharcade' and 'monkey island'. Use it for anything and find info and opinion on things that might be in feeds but unless you got that feed you'd never know. http://tweetdeck.com Grab the twitters from the devs and slot them in that, divide by whatever you want. They might blog something but they'll probably blog that they twittered something earlier. If you can ignore the crap - of which there is plenty - it can be a useful source of information. And if you do like news it's almost certainly on Twitter first.
Yeah I never quite understood it either, but I use it. It's fun talking with random people you hardly know, because no one I know irl uses it really (cept like 2 people). Other than that I use it for news feeds and stuff and like it more than RSS feeds. twitter.com/booch138 if you want to add me. I am bored and on all the time at work and most of the time at home. Could always use more peopl to follow/followers
It's useful for businesses and conventions, etc etc. The only reason I have mine is to keep track of possible promo code contests and updates with games. :/
We had a discussion about this the other day in the office, and the fact of that matter is that this is a fad that is already starting to fade. The churn rate for Twits is 40 percent a month meaning 40 percent of the people who sign up for an account are leaving each month. That's a lot and eventually, you will run out of people to create a sustainable model. The other problem is the marketing aspect. Twitter is overrun with marketing, and so from a marketing perspective, it's also starting to lose that shiny feel on that end too because it becoming more difficult to get to the right audience. In addition, in Twitter land, the more followers you have, the more respected you're supposed to be. The problem now is that there are services that actually sell followers to build up numbers. There are literally people who buy followers in bulk so it looks like they have a couple hundred to thousands of followers. On the business end, the running joke out here in the valley is the only ones still smitten with Twitter are the venture capitalists. Twitter has no business model and they have no idea how to make money other than from the VCs. In fact, the original plan called for Twitter not to have a business model for another 2 years...go figure. But, with the economy, they're being forced to come up with one now. Facebook is the same...believe me.
I never liked Twitter, in fact, I don't like most social networking sites. I like Facebook the best. Twitter - people pointlessly 'following' random celebrities who post pointless bits of information (who want's to know when Steven Fry is taking a dump?) Myspace - 14 year old's generally pissing people off and uploading crap emo music. Bebo - This is the place where all the retards I know go to do their social networking. Just my two pence.
I take it to be the same as blogging (you choose who you care enough to follow), only with really SHORT posts, that are quick and easy for both the writer and the reader. And I don't get it either I actually DID join MySpace and FaceBook, and I don't get those either.
On June 10th I posted this in the Most online thread.. Past 16K now Members: 16,510, Active Members: 6,671 Added 3000+ new members but only added around 400 more active members. Since then we are at Members: 20,728, Active Members: 6,458 Added 4000+ new members but actually have 200 less active members. Any idea what the churn rate is on TA?
You're right, it's either emo or shitty. No, just kidding. But it's true, most of the good bands don't have a lot of people following them.
I was mistaken about Twitter's churn rate. It's actually 60% which is much worse so they're only retaining about 40% of users. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitter-quitters-post-roadblock-to-long-term-growth/
