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.
Do I have a twitter account?
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.
Related Stories:
@Radiant: Suuuuuure…
*runs quite fast, Dougal*
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.
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*
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.
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.
No twitter 4 me. Y? Can’t be arsed.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Muzman: The Unix command for looking up a user on a network is “finger”. Hilarity* ensues.
* Or just moments of awkwardness.
Ah right. cheers. I found the real one too. It was the .plan wars I was thinking of.
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.
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…
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.
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.
wats a twitter lol
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!
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!
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.
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?
I have one only so that I can subscribe to others.
I have one – arbitrarygenius, I love twitter, because I can be totally random and others are a lot more witty.
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.
Yes. I have a twitter account. You replied to my tweet yesterday, and that’s how I found this website!
I wonder how many comments on this story are under 150 characters?
I hear birdsong and it scares and confuses me.
I’m actually on as Jhoosier, which I’ll get around to changing this loging to, sooner or later. Probably later.
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.
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.
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.
No. The RPS fanbase is so rabid, they stalk each other.
@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.)
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 : )
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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)
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…