By Kieron Gillen on January 12th, 2009 at 8:50 pm.
Barnett pointed me at this, via twitter, appropriately enough. Sam Houston is maintaining a list of twitter feeds of people in the industry who don’t mind it being public. And what a list for cheery stalking. For example, we can swiftly find out that Ragnar Tornquist‘s favourite comfort movie is Lost in Translation, George Broussard‘s wondering where the Pizza has got to and Valve Software – er- want us to know that there’s some deals on Steam. Well, it’s not all stalking on there, mores the pity.
As a matter of interest, how many RPS readers are on Twitter? I’ve done a poll beneath the cut. Feel free to explain your reasons in the comments.
Ignore the n. It’s a bug. We can’t do anything about it, because we have a tiny brain and we’re far too busy posting non-sequiturs on our twitter account.
12/01/2009 at 20:53 Chris Evans says:
Yes I have one, and you have just reminded me that I have one :o
12/01/2009 at 20:56 Pags says:
Third option!
I don’t have one but am thinking of getting one so as to inform me a) of album dates/leaks/etc. b) of various bloggery c) so I can irritate people.
C is the most important reason.
12/01/2009 at 20:57 The Poisoned Sponge says:
I have Twitter, and I’m following two of the four members of the hivemind. I don’t think Walker is there, ’cause he’s scared of bird-noises, and I can’t find Jim…
Yes, I am King Stalker.
12/01/2009 at 20:57 CitizenParker says:
I have a Twitter account mostly because my blog comes and goes, and because Paul F. Thompkins’ and Tom Scharpling’s Twitters are hilarious.
I love you too though, Brem X. I’m an American who isn’t into music though, so it’s typically beyond me.
12/01/2009 at 20:59 cyrenic says:
I don’t have a Twitter account because technology scares me.
12/01/2009 at 21:01 Naurgul says:
What’s twitter? :p
But seriously, I don’t get twitter. Why do people like it? It’s like the telegraph, only for the internet. Wasn’t the telegraph’s only advantage over regular mail speed?
12/01/2009 at 21:07 Seniath says:
Twitter serves as my contact to the outside world whilst stuck in work. Also: stalkage. I go by Seniath, natch.
12/01/2009 at 21:07 Doc MacRae says:
I’d probably enjoy it, but I can’t be bothered.
12/01/2009 at 21:09 The Poisoned Sponge says:
I’m under ‘poisonsponge’ in case anyone wants to stalk/follow me and massively inflate my ego.
12/01/2009 at 21:10 Jonas says:
As you are probably aware, I do in fact have Twitter, and am following you. In fact it’s through you I found all the games journos I’m stalk– following.
This list is most welcome, and will make my stalking much easier. I mean following. Thank you.
Also love the post image.
12/01/2009 at 21:15 ImperialCreed says:
On Twitter too, for largely the same reasons as everyone else here, if I’m honest.
It seems like some strange form of stalking, but when Gillen comes out with strangeness like “I have just experienced karma, which is hard to object to. And then some extra karma, which seems just mean” how can you honestly not ignore that? :P
12/01/2009 at 21:16 pepper says:
Dont have, dont care. Nor do i care for facebook/myspace/genericprofilewebsite. Once had such an account but got annoyed at it and deleted it. Still dont miss it.
12/01/2009 at 21:18 Zak Canard says:
Twitter is nothing more than blogging for the text generation. Why tell the world you’re going to the shops for milk in a four part epic posting when you can do it in under 150 characters? Um, no ta. I think I’ll stick with reading blogs over twitters because quite frankly my attention span is longer than that of the average… Oooh butterflies!
12/01/2009 at 21:26 Wildbluesun says:
Don’t have Twitter, but was thinking about getting it just earlier today, funnily enough.
If I was ever provided a large enough incentive I’d probably get it, but don’t really have a motivation right now.
12/01/2009 at 21:32 Cigol says:
I can’t move for twitter these past few months, what’s going on?
12/01/2009 at 21:34 Bperry says:
I actually have 2, a personal one, and one for the podcast I host.
12/01/2009 at 21:35 hydra9 says:
Twitter seems like a tool for procrastination. If you’re following enough people, you’ll have messages popping up all time, which you might, of course, want to post replies to.
I used it for a short while, purely for myself. I kept it private and wrote things on there like ‘working on script for next two hours’ in the hopes that it would help me to keep to a routine. After a couple of weeks, I realised I’d almost stopped using it.
12/01/2009 at 21:35 qrter says:
It’s a place to jot down a quick thought, link to something interesting/silly you come across, that kind of stuff.
It’s like anything else – it’s only as boring/bad/stupid etc. as the people that use it (chose wisely who you follow on Twitter and you will be rewarded!).
The 140 character limit actually forces you to think creatively about how you formulate something (although there’s always the possibility to spread across several messages).
Besides that, it’s also fun to see what Stephen Fry is up to in New Zealand, or what John Cleese is grumpy about.
I’m on Twitter as, guess what – qrter.
12/01/2009 at 21:38 mandrill says:
I tweet, though sparsely, I also stalk famous tweeters like Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman. I’ll be adding some of these to my follow list, feel free to add me to yours.
12/01/2009 at 21:42 DERP says:
I’d get a twitter account.
but nobody would stalk me, so what’s the point?
12/01/2009 at 21:43 Jeremy says:
I do not have Twitter, honestly, I haven’t even looked into it. Facebook fulfills my stalking cravings. Also, unrelated to the topic at hand, have you ever considered using title in addition to alt for us Firefox users… it would be nice to see all of those fancy words behind each image.
12/01/2009 at 21:44 qrter says:
Another one I like a lot is Y Istair, who is chronicling his escape from Vault 101 and his consequent adventures in the D.C. wasteland.
12/01/2009 at 21:46 Radiant says:
That’s the thing: unless you are Stephen Fry or Neil Gaiman then why in the world would you think anyone would want to know if you’ve just had a bath?
People on twitter just need to get a blog write on that for two months and then take a long hard look back at how mediocre your life is that you think I would want to read about it on an hourly basis.
12/01/2009 at 21:46 Steve says:
No. Twitter is bad and you should feel bad for using it.
None wants to hear what you’re doing every minute of the day and how you just took a huge shit.
12/01/2009 at 21:46 Jeremy says:
Also, while I’m talking html, that extra “n” you have may actually be a failed attempt to create a new line, maybe they just forgot the necessary “/” before it? Could just be an easy delete of an erroneous letter in the code.
12/01/2009 at 21:48 shon says:
It all depends on who you are following. My friends twittering about how much they hate their jobs =boring. Jhonen Vasquez twittering about his post apocalyptic fashion choices= hilarious.
12/01/2009 at 21:49 Radiant says:
Evidently yes I do hate twitter.
It’s ridiculous I have a phone with sms and IM and I can also read email on it if I want to know what you are doing I’ll ask.
12/01/2009 at 21:58 qrter says:
I think most people don’t really care if they’re read or not and I don’t think most people take it very seriously. Some people use it for mundane remarks, others for, as Gillen says, a non-sequitur, firstly to amuse themselves and then maybe others.
I’m guessing someone is forcing you to read their Twitter. What a bastard!
12/01/2009 at 22:02 Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:
I’ve always thought this sounded a bit random, but what the heck, I like signing up to everything imaginable. I’m on! Katsumoto_EG! Watch me do one update then forget about it, like with everything. I’ll add some of you guys and find out how fascinating your day to day existence is! FTW
12/01/2009 at 22:02 mandrill says:
I don’t tweet meaningless stuff, it is a method of communication, a tool for putting people in touch with each other. A way of tapping into a global hive mind with a store of knowledge and experience that no other medium can achieve.
Yes, there are those that use it purely to tell the world that they’ve just taken a huge dump that bears a striking resemblance to Britney Spears but they can be safely ignored (unless you have an interest in such things). Some of the first eyewitness reports of what was happening in Mumbai as the gun men went their merry way came through twitter. On a more relevant note as EVE online was approaching a new PCU last night the word went out on twitter to all the EVE players that have it to get their asses online to push it over the edge, and we did too (47,207 concurrent players, on one server, beat that WoW :P)
It is much like the rest of the interwebs; you’ve got to filter it to get at the good stuff, and the good stuff has a tendency to be really good.
12/01/2009 at 22:05 yhancik says:
As much as I love technology and the whole web2.0 thing, I can’t get to use Twitter. As said earlier, it feels a little redundant when you already have blogs, facebook, flickr, delicious, last.fm, mail, im, sms & RSS reader.
With all that I already have hard time focusing on what I’m doing…
12/01/2009 at 22:08 The Poisoned Sponge says:
I do find it amusing that Twitter has built up this reputation as somewhere to tell everyone every time you go to the loo. It’s not a chat program. It’s there to put up thoughts and insights, and to share interesting things like news articles and videos. I don’t think I’ve ever done a ‘Now I’m doing this!’ post.
12/01/2009 at 22:11 qrter says:
Actually, Stephen Fry does a lot of ‘Now I’m doing this!’ postingtons.
12/01/2009 at 22:21 cliffski says:
I’m on twitter as cliffski. You old grandads need to keep up wiv what da kids do these dayz.
12/01/2009 at 22:22 Ziv says:
I don’t have because I have nothing to do there, none of my friends know what it is. I barely know :P
12/01/2009 at 22:24 Wallace says:
Signed up and stalking. What people are saying about filtering out the quality stuff is spot on.
12/01/2009 at 22:31 Theoban says:
I just don’t understand Twitter. I’ve looked at it and it’s just there for you to say what you’re doing. If I started doing that it’d just be a million posts of…
Still at work
Still at work
Took a dump, still at work
Going for lunch!
Back at work
Still at work
Still at work
GOING HOME
At home
Still at home
and so on.
12/01/2009 at 22:33 Jonas says:
Random hilarious Tweets of the day:
hardcasual: Best Google referrals of the week: “”leigh alexander”+boyfriend”, “game jornalism is a joke” [sic] and “do women like androgynous guys”
leighalexander: @hardcasual are you shitting me
Also I am already following Cliffski. I mean stalking. No wait I actually do mean following! Yes.
12/01/2009 at 22:42 Dave says:
I have a Twitter account. I got bored of updating it, and even more bored of seeing other peoples’ tweets (except maybe a select few funny folk).
12/01/2009 at 22:47 Lonesamurai says:
I don’t have a twitter account, cos I honestly dunno what one is for
12/01/2009 at 22:57 Tei says:
I feel old now. That twitter thing feel soo ***** to me.
12/01/2009 at 23:01 solipsistnation says:
I do. It’s what you’d think it ought to be. I only started using it since I found a text-only interface that plugs into my IRC client.
12/01/2009 at 23:02 LewieP says:
Third option – I have one but all I’ve done is forwards my RSS to it, so it just ‘twits’ everytime I make a blog post, with a link to it.
I don’t ever really use it myself.
12/01/2009 at 23:06 Chris Evans says:
I am ‘chrisevoevans’
12/01/2009 at 23:08 Schmung says:
Twitter has sort of passed me by. I sort of don’t understand it, but I may indulge just so I can spy on..I mean keep track of various people and give me something to look at while I’m in work.
12/01/2009 at 23:11 Radiant says:
qrtr I’m actually more pissed off at the girl I’ve been stalking protecting her updates.
WHO IS YOUR NEW BOYFRIEND AND HOW IS HE ON A SCALE OF ONE TO RADIANT?
12/01/2009 at 23:11 KBKarma says:
Twitter? Yup. As KBKarma, predictably enough.
Reason? Because
I can update using my phone, thus allowing me to stick up brief comments about the odd things I see in Dublin (such as a man with a large paper-maché Bono head the same size as Bono, or someone playing chess in the middle of the street)
Due to the lack of markup required (and if HTML can be used, I will use it. Or try…), it’s a lot faster to post to it than LiveJournal.
I’m following Keiron, I think I gave up on the Walker, and I believe Jim’s my third target.
12/01/2009 at 23:12 Radiant says:
ITS ME THE GUY WHO SAW YOU ON THE TUBE.
I WAS SCRATCHING MY LEG NOT MY BALLS!
12/01/2009 at 23:13 KBKarma says:
Also: the fact that ol tags don’t work is vaguely perplexing. Also, annoying. My post looks messy now. :(
12/01/2009 at 23:14 qrter says:
I bet it’s Kieron Gillen. Read his Twitter outpourings for veiled clues.
12/01/2009 at 23:14 KBKarma says:
@Radiant: Suuuuuure…
*runs quite fast, Dougal*
12/01/2009 at 23:29 Radiant says:
Gillen! That scoundrel.
But really one of the reasons I dislike twitter is that it’s sort of rolled into my dislike for blogs.
Ultimately the reason for its use is an inflated sense of self; how important do you think you are that you want someone to read your exact whereabouts or the status of your Palm Pre?
The type of person who thinks like that infuriates me.
More so with twitter in that it’s hourly proclamations without bothering to provide context.
The type of person who is unable or unwilling to put context behind their inane twitterings infuriates me even more.
12/01/2009 at 23:31 Radiant says:
Sorry I’m turning into an AIM; I need to go take a bath before I check out the new webOS on my *shoots self*
12/01/2009 at 23:36 chesh says:
Yes, I have twitter (@cheshster, not that anyone cares), and one of my happiest moments was when Kieron sent me a DM in response to my gushing about how much I loved PG1.
12/01/2009 at 23:37 Ginger Yellow says:
Not on it. Don’t really see the point of it, myself – Facebook’s good enough for me, and I only use that to make sure I don’t miss out on party invites – but I don’t begrudge other people using it.
12/01/2009 at 23:41 Scandalon says:
No twitter 4 me. Y? Can’t be arsed.
12/01/2009 at 23:47 A-Scale says:
I do not have one because as a young American none of my friends use it. No one under 30 has a twitter account (as a general rule).
12/01/2009 at 23:52 The Archetype says:
I am not on the Twitter, because even though I have had it explained to me multiple times and seen it in action I am still not entirely sure what it is.
12/01/2009 at 23:54 Gap Gen says:
Facebook has a similar function (“Joe Bloggs is…”) and I have rarely seen anything of worth entered into that box (beyond idle friend chatter). Of course, you could do something interesting with it, but like the Lore Sjoberg “Alt Text” article says, it’s too short to say anything really worth saying.
13/01/2009 at 00:02 Gap Gen says:
George Broussard says: “Game developers often say “Cutting is shipping”. We begin this year with a vengeance and a chainsaw.”
You heard it first: DN:F is a Pong clone.
13/01/2009 at 00:02 Muzman says:
What were those things called that the big devs used to have arguments on and everyone used to watch? Fingers or something?
I suppose you can’t have enough characters in a twitter message for something similar to start up again.
13/01/2009 at 00:04 Tom Armitage says:
I’m there, but am friends-only for a whole bunch of reasons.
More to the point, my friends who aren’t friends only include @bill_l4d, @francis_l4d, @louis_l4d and @zoey_l4d. They like to play games.
13/01/2009 at 00:05 Mo says:
I don’t keep a personal twitter account, but as an indie dev Caffeine Monster Software has one. In fact, I sent a message to Sam asking to put me on the list on a complete whim, and now I’ve got a tonne of people following me. Which is nice. :)
I think twitter is a lot of fun for following friends. I think it’d be fun to watch developer twitter feeds, but the problem with most on that list is that they tweet about their personal life, not really about work. Not their fault of course (they have NDAs) but it’s a bit frustrating. Me, I have no NDA! :) I try to balance between dev/life (skewing more toward dev stuff) and I think that makes for a more interesting twitter blog to follow.
http://www.twitter.com/caffeinemonster
13/01/2009 at 00:09 Tom Armitage says:
My friends who aren’t friends? What the cock was I smoking! Anyhow, my friends who aren’t real people include that lot, and, every now and then, they save the world. Sometimes, I even get whole sentences right.
13/01/2009 at 00:09 Gap Gen says:
Muzman: The Unix command for looking up a user on a network is “finger”. Hilarity* ensues.
* Or just moments of awkwardness.
13/01/2009 at 00:17 Muzman says:
Ah right. cheers. I found the real one too. It was the .plan wars I was thinking of.
13/01/2009 at 00:25 The_B says:
Yup, and pretty much similar reasons to everybody else. And yes, rather unoriginally I also go by the name The_B on there as well.
13/01/2009 at 00:29 Daniel Purvis says:
I fell into Twitter without originally having any idea what it was and even whether it was of any value. After having used it for many months, it has provided an excellent open forum that has allowed commenters on a number of websites I visit, including The Brainy Gamer and Insult Swordfighting, to develop strong relationships.
It also eats time, which is quite a worry…
13/01/2009 at 00:43 absentblue says:
3. Just started one, like today, like, right before I came here. I was even wondering if there were any devs, how convenient is this? Not sure if I’m gonna use mine or not, but it’s there.
13/01/2009 at 01:06 Ian says:
I’d assume that nobody I know cares nearly enough about the minor details of my life to care, even if I could be arsed making one.
I’m sure there’s people who makes their Twitter stuff quite amusing and link to some good stuff but I can’t really be bothered.
13/01/2009 at 02:02 Jochen Scheisse says:
wats a twitter lol
13/01/2009 at 02:02 Ging says:
I mainly use it to follow people who I’ve seen have interesting tidbits every now and then (the guardiantech blog, Natural Selection 2 updates, Major Nelson amongst others) – I rarely tweet anything, as it would mainly be me complaining that I’m bored due to unemployment!
13/01/2009 at 02:29 Iain "DDude" Dawson says:
I found this iaindawson fellow to be also on twitter, and one would assue he uses it for funzies. And I must say, his semi-regular comments are incredibly humourous!
Fine show sir!
13/01/2009 at 02:46 Tim James says:
I have a twitter acount, my name there is cubed2D.
While im at it, may i recomend Raptr to you fine, fine folks. its kinda like xfire in that it tracks your game playing, but it supports social networking site like twitter, and can twit automagicly about your game playing.
13/01/2009 at 04:04 Post Maker says:
The only reason I would have a Twitter account would be so that I could use it as an awkward way to plug my blog.
Looks like I’m getting a Twitter account?
13/01/2009 at 04:23 nabeel says:
I have one only so that I can subscribe to others.
13/01/2009 at 05:53 arbitrary says:
I have one – arbitrarygenius, I love twitter, because I can be totally random and others are a lot more witty.
13/01/2009 at 06:09 the affront says:
Don’t have one, don’t want one. Same thing with myspace/facebook/any blog or profile site.
In my opinion these are really more for attention whoring purposes than anything else, because why would I (or _anyone_) want to read about some dude with a generic life?
I’ll grant that there might be a few interesting blogs/blog-like sites out there, but they are so few and far between that actively looking for them would be like searching for a pearl in a sewage plant.
But then again, me and my fellow group of nerds hang out in the same +k IRC channel for nigh on 10 years now whenever one is at the PC, so that might have something to do with it.
13/01/2009 at 06:20 C J Kinniburgh says:
Yes. I have a twitter account. You replied to my tweet yesterday, and that’s how I found this website!
13/01/2009 at 07:35 Pags says:
I wonder how many comments on this story are under 150 characters?
13/01/2009 at 07:39 Gnarl says:
I hear birdsong and it scares and confuses me.
13/01/2009 at 07:41 Jeremy says:
I’m actually on as Jhoosier, which I’ll get around to changing this loging to, sooner or later. Probably later.
13/01/2009 at 08:52 Derek Dogshit says:
Count me out. Like all these personal techs, it’s great that it’s embraced by the masses and is thus there as a tool should I need to abuse it, but yeah… count me out of the regular user base. And no, that’s not a veiled way of me saying I have one.
13/01/2009 at 09:23 James G says:
Yup, have a Twitter account, and have tied it into my Facebook status so that one updates the other. Don’t update it hugely regularly, but then again I rarely have something hugely interesting to say. And yeah, JamesG on there as well.
13/01/2009 at 09:29 DSX says:
I refuse to twitter, use my phone for SMS, or utilize any form of communication that further seeks to phoneticize the English language. Game sp34k and/or the US public school system have already done far too much damage as it is.
13/01/2009 at 09:37 Dinger says:
No. The RPS fanbase is so rabid, they stalk each other.
13/01/2009 at 09:37 James G says:
@DSX, except that studies have shown that children who text more regularly have superior language skills. [Cite]
Language will always be adapted to fit the medium in which it is being used. Besides, if Stephen Fry Twitters, I don’t think we have much to fear. (It is also perfectly possible to compose a tweet without having to resort to abbreviations.)
13/01/2009 at 10:02 Biggles says:
Have an account for curiosity but never really log on, so option 3 for me. Though I do enjoy the number of 3ers so far, this being RPS, I like to imagine a large proportion of those are simple being facetious : )
13/01/2009 at 10:42 Chaz says:
Never heard of Twitter until now, and I still don’t have a clue what it is. I don’t really go in for all these social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace etc. I’ve got a few accounts on forums here and there and that’s about it. Maybe I’m just antisocial.
13/01/2009 at 10:48 Pags says:
This is entirely true; look at the way the English language changed after the printing press moved into wide use. I’ve always thought that internet shorthand and text speak were the next step from that – language being changed as new mediums grow.
13/01/2009 at 11:06 Albides says:
I’ll throw in with the “I don’t understand twitter” crowd.
But I don’t really understand Facebook either. I tried it for all of 10 minutes but got intimidated when I searched for people from high school and saw them indulging in, you know, social things, and doing things with their face that my face had never done before. Smiling, I think. So I deleted it quickly so they wouldn’t find me and talk about their horrible dull lives and expect me to smile in return as if it were the most fascinating and remarkable thing I’d ever heard, and then be forced to tell them about my startling lack of accomplishment in my maundering, faineant existence.
So… I don’t do twitter. Or anything really social.
13/01/2009 at 11:14 Kast says:
DSX – It’s up to you how you write in those examples. In any example you could think of. If you prefer full English sentences, write in them. Don’t blame a system for how some people choose to use it.
As for Twitter, I’ve got one. Usually forget about it for three months, someone reminds me about it, I post a few times again then repeat the cycle.
13/01/2009 at 11:20 alphaxion says:
I’m on there as alphaxion and I use it to ask questions, post about blog updates, tweet events I’m at like last nights Game Republic talk where Martin Korda and Jon Hare talked about AI in games, and the comical thing of walking into a lamp post >.<
It’s also good for picking up info on what others are doing professionally. I also went one step further and use friendfeed.
13/01/2009 at 12:57 AceCrikey says:
I just set one up last week under the name of AceCrikey. Currently follower less, although I have done the Twitter pre-requisite of following Stephen Fry. He’s in New Zealand, don’t ya know.
I can see it becoming a handy and cheap replacement to text messaging, especially organising large groups.
Add me, RPS’ers. Add me and let me read your lives!
13/01/2009 at 13:38 Jonas says:
I heartily recommend also following warrenellis. He’s like a one-man encyclopedia on the topic of drinking-jokes.
But yes, everybody who pointed out that the trick to enjoying Twitter is carefully picking who you’re following are spot on: Follow your boring friends and Twitter will be boring. Follow journalists or writers who understand how to craft a short message for maximum effect and you will understand what the point is.
Of course I’ve ended up following a healthy mix of friends and cool people – it can be nice to get updates on what people you actually know are up to. I also enjoy the challenge of interesting twittering myself – forcing yourself to formulate short messages in amusing ways is good writing practice :)
13/01/2009 at 15:02 Dag says:
I am on as well Dagbar. I don’t really get it much since they have disabled most if not all ways to find NEW people interested in the things you like.
13/01/2009 at 15:09 plant42 says:
Yeah, I have one – Twitter is awesome for stalking – I keep trying to get into this new music/gaming site and it’s still in closed beta, so I have to be content just stalking them from their twitter account.
13/01/2009 at 16:42 Iain says:
I don’t have a Twitter account for two reasons:
1) I don’t want to have yet another password to have to remember, &
2) If blogging’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.
13/01/2009 at 17:07 jalf says:
I signed up for twitter all of 2 days ago, and tbh I’m stunned that it doesn’t seem to accept an OpenID account. That would solve the Yet Another Password problem for me, at least (since I was forced to create an OpenID, uh, ID a month or two back)
13/01/2009 at 17:29 Freelancepolice says:
I have just started one I’m freelanceP because some cad had already taken freelancepolice. I’m not sure of the point of it yet…
13/01/2009 at 17:45 Yontan says:
Finally got around to sorting out my account afew months back at the insistance of Willeth. Turns out he was following some pretty interesting people. ShawnElliott floods my twitter page with a constant supply of links and every now and then I feel an urge to stop following him, then he sends out an absolute gem of an internet find!
It’s like playing an MMORPG, hours of grind for that one moment glory/hilarious bug that somehow makes it worthwhile.
13/01/2009 at 18:24 Frans Coehoorn says:
Yes, I have one and I use it like one time a month. It’s very awesome.
13/01/2009 at 18:49 eyemessiah says:
I don’t use twitter because I don’t really get it. That said I’m not really interested in blogs (as a technology I mean – I do read one and technically I have my own!), or online social networking and I only just tolerate forums because people stopped longform-insulting each other on usenet.
I get enough small-talk and chit-chat in RL!
13/01/2009 at 19:50 Darren Torpey says:
For those interested in a rather intelligent look at Twitter: Mark McGuinness wrote a great article about why, despite the bad initial impression he got (and most of us get) about Twitter, he was wrong about Twitter (and why it’s actually quite great).
13/01/2009 at 21:34 eyemessiah says:
I watched the intro to twitter video on the “why he was wrong” page you linked to.
The guy says something about how you don’t tell your all your friends that you are having coffee because they don’t need to know and then goes on to ask but what about the people who want to know? I am more worried about who these people who want to know that I am having coffee are, what is wrong with them and how quickly I can get a restraining order enforced against them.
Mark says “Maybe Tweets are the digital equivalent of all the snorts and grunts and trumpetings and flicking of tails by which herds of animals maintain contact and cohesion…”
Which basically sums up everything that horrifies me about the modern internet. Orgy Porgy!
13/01/2009 at 21:34 Alonzo says:
n
good to see it’s still there.
I dont use twitter because i dont know anyone that uses it. A surprising number of computery-types still dont even know it exists, it seems to be a very specific to certain groups kind of thing.
14/01/2009 at 02:06 Darren Torpey says:
Yeah, the video that Mark put at the bottom seems to completely contradict what he’s saying about Twitter. It’s everything he actually wrote that reflects a lot of what Twitter is good for. (The casual-conversation-with-interesting-people effect, if you will.)
14/01/2009 at 09:07 wcaypahwat says:
I signed up, and it turns out not a single person I know uses it. So now im just following people from here. And ms. Alexander.
14/01/2009 at 12:28 Hmm-hmm says:
I keep getting dragged into these things. First it was just face to face, phonecalls, letters. Then e-mail. Message boards. ICQ. Various IRC channels. AIM. MSN. Now I’m also on the dutch version of MySpace. It always gets to a point where I simply decide to scrap most of the means of digital communication. I’m already wondering when I should dump that MySpace thingie.
So, Twitter? No thanks, really.
14/01/2009 at 20:24 GothikX says:
I have one, but use it once in a blue moon. Stalk– following people on twitter would consume the precious little free time I have left.
16/01/2009 at 07:00 Enlargement says:
I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my research. Thanks
22/01/2009 at 01:44 Jessi says:
I have one, too. I’ve never commented at RPS but have been reading for quite a while. I tried out Twitter early last year and didn’t like it at all….found it a waste of time. A month ago, I decided to try my hand at it again and while it’s still a waste of time for the most part, I’ve found it to be an interesting waste of time here and there, so I’m sticking with it now.