Conversions of a Twitter Revert

On Jan 4, 2008, at 7:53 AM, Adam Bell wrote:

> I was about half way through your process, having turned off the
> instant notifications. Your tidBIT kicked me over the line --
> Twitterific is gone.

And I've again retired Twitterific. At natural breaks I switch down
to space 3 to see what's going on. "Instantness" doesn't seem
necessary; on the other hand it's been fun following Leo LaPorte
around Egypt. I've only touched the edge of Egypt--I didn't make the
Luxor or Cairo excursion from "my" cruise ship.

   --John

Over the past year I've tried to figure out why so many people like Twitter. Even some of those who were initially skeptical about it came to like it. What I've finally decided is that I'm a curmudgeon. I really don't like interruptions, whether I'm working or playing. Twitter seems to take the worst things from IM and bundle it with bad blogs. Imagine someone sending you an IM about their experience rubbing sleep gunk out of their eye. In 140 characters or less. So I'm interrupted about something completely trivial.

Now I fully get that depending on who you watch and who watches you that actual information transfer can happen and not everything is as trivial as sleep gunk. But what I would rather read is a blog post about how the sleep gunk came to be and that you found it while staring at your reflection in someones sunglasses. Basically a blog/rss post I can read when I'm not neck deep in a debugging session.

My last problem with Twitter, and its a new one, is that everyone that seems to promote it says that its more useful/enjoyable if the people you know are also on it. Apart from the chicken and the egg aspect (and really so many are on it that it does seem to have a bit of steam) I don't want to have to entice my friends to use something just so I can gain from it. Of course I would gain interruptions so maybe I'm not the best test case. ;)


--
Michael
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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

cuz I find it funny

--On January 6, 2008 3:49:35 AM -0800 Michael Krzyzek <michaeltactile.com>
wrote:

> Over the past year I've tried to figure out why so many people like
> Twitter. Even some of those who were initially skeptical about it came to
> like it. What I've finally decided is that I'm a curmudgeon. I really
> don't like interruptions, whether I'm working or playing. Twitter seems
> to take the worst things from IM and bundle it with bad blogs. Imagine
> someone sending you an IM about their experience rubbing sleep gunk out
> of their eye. In 140 characters or less. So I'm interrupted about
> something completely trivial.

I hate instant messaging. I just got into a debate at work about this, we
hired a new guy and he wondered if we used instant messaging for support. I
refuse to do this (and we currently don't) because when we beta tested
using IM for support it made my life hell. I work odd hours simply because
the disruptive nature of support (via phone, e-mail or IM) means I can't
focus on bigger projects for more than a few minutes at a time. But with
IM broadcasting my status around, anyone else working late decided I was
their computer support for the most trivial things (things that could wait
until morning normally).

IM was worse than the phone. If a server goes down and I'm working on it I
can forward my phone to a preset message on my voice mail. They hear it,
figure out it's already a problem I'm working on and hang up. With IM I'd
get 10 IM messages each want individualized updates on what is going on,
when it will be fixed, and what the heck is taking so long. ANd if you
don't answer they get offended.

Anyway, with all that said, I enjoy twitter. There are a few reasons for
this:

1) I chose who I follow. If I give you my twitter username you can listen
to me, but I won't hear your tweets until I choose to. With IM once you've
got my username you can pretty much annoy me as much as you want (I imagine
clients have blocks in them, but still in general that's the way it works.)

2) Twitterific can make twitter more interruptive. But it's configurable to
not be so.

3) because your tweets are broadcast in nature conversations tend to be
short before taken to another medium. As a huge back and forth between John
Welch and myself recently showed, if you start running a long conversation
others jump in and tell you to go away (or drop you.)

4) it isn't always broadcast my state to the world (I'm online, I'm
offline, I'm away, I'm busy). If I reply, I'm online and replying. If I'm
not, I'm not.

> My last problem with Twitter, and its a new one, is that everyone that
> seems to promote it says that its more useful/enjoyable if the people you
> know are also on it. Apart from the chicken and the egg aspect (and
> really so many are on it that it does seem to have a bit of steam) I
> don't want to have to entice my friends to use something just so I can
> gain from it. Of course I would gain interruptions so maybe I'm not the
> best test case. ;)

I think there is a point at which a social network can become too popular.
For example, if my boss started following me on twitter I'm probably going
to start posting less and less. and the creepy guy down the hall, etc....

On Jan 7, 2008, at 2:21 AM, Kevin van Haaren wrote:

> I hate instant messaging.

I agree. We do use it at work--among ourselves and on a private
Jabber server--for coordination among the tech support staff, and
among the admin staff, and between the two camps as needed.

(And the admin side gets system problem pages via SMS--I've typed
about 4 SMS messages since getting my day 1 iPhone.)

I haven't become available on my outside IM this year (OK, the year is
young--also only a few times early in December to do Leopard-ish
things with another staff member), and don't plan to use it for
general contacts..

I likewise use Twitter in non-interrupting mode: when I have a
natural break, I sneak down into space 3 and update my browser-housed
Twitter window.

   --John

--On January 7, 2008 2:21:58 AM -0800 Kevin van Haaren
<kevinvanhaaren.net> wrote:

> Anyway, with all that said, I enjoy twitter. There are a few reasons for
> this:

Well I said all that and didn't grovel for Twitter followers. If you
interested in anything interesting I might say you can follow me on twitter
at:

<http://twitter.com/kvanhaaren>

At 7:10 AM -0800 1/9/08, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:
>On Jan 7, 2008, at 2:21 AM, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>
>>I hate instant messaging.
>
>I agree. We do use it at work--among ourselves and on a private
>Jabber server--for coordination among the tech support staff, and
>among the admin staff, and between the two camps as needed.

I disagree. We also have it installed at work on a private Jabber
server, and it is indispensable for us (IT group).

When we need to have conversation with the Help Desk (IT people
providing support on the telephone for the rest of the company),
they are likely to be on the phone with a customer, or about to be on
the phone. IM allows me to have conversation with them while they
talk on the phone to someone else. More importantly to them, it
allows them to have IM conversation with each other while talking on
the phone to someone else. These conversations are not just idle chit
chat (the presumed source of IM's bad reputation), but legitimate
business.

My second reason for finding IM to provide a legitimate business use
is that - unlike Kevin - I can set a presence indicator in my IM
client that shows people whether I am available or not for chat (both
IM chat and physical). If I set a "[red signal] 'In, but if it's
important...' " people know not to bother me unless it really is an
important message. I have a few other simple messages that indicate
to people whether I am available and free, in but busy, away but back
soon, etc.

I use a similar set of presence indicator messages from my .Mac
account with iChat. And I have noticed a number of people on my buddy
list do the same. In some cases the presence messages have evolved
into something I imagine is almost like a stripped down and useful
twitter (which I don't use). One person on my buddy list uses it to
let others know, when he is away from his computer, to call him on
his cell phone, and he has his number listed. For his staff this is a
critical piece of information when they have a crisis (rare) in which
he must be contacted.

I remember a time when most people refused to leave a message on an
answering machine, and similarly when people refused to use email. I
suspect the same will happen with IM, especially as the younger
people who are more accustomed to it in their lives (and more aware
of how useful it is) come into the workplace.

> I remember a time when most people refused to leave a message on an
> answering machine, and similarly when people refused to use email. I
> suspect the same will happen with IM, especially as the younger
> people who are more accustomed to it in their lives (and more aware
> of how useful it is) come into the workplace.

My son (born 1987) have a emailaccount, i have never been able to
reach him on that.
- Did you read the link i sent you?
- What link?
- The one i emailed you
- Email?

He and his friends use IM or SMS to communicate with friends.

At 5:17 AM -0800 1/12/08, Stickan wrote:
>> I remember a time when most people refused to leave a message on an
>> answering machine, and similarly when people refused to use email. I
>> suspect the same will happen with IM, especially as the younger
>> people who are more accustomed to it in their lives (and more aware
>> of how useful it is) come into the workplace.
>
> My son (born 1987) have a emailaccount, i have never been able to
> reach him on that.
> - Did you read the link i sent you?
> - What link?
> - The one i emailed you
> - Email?
>
> He and his friends use IM or SMS to communicate with friends.

On the Devon Technologies blog "The Balcony" from yesterday:
<http://www.devon-technologies.com/scripts/wordpress/?p=291>

"For me, electronic chat has almost replaced the telephone, at least in
business. So here’s my question for you: Do you keep your chatlogs and
which chat application do you use?"

And then he follows with:

"This blog is now also mobile phone ready. In fact, this article was
posted with my Sony-Ericsson K750i during a walk with our dog."

I shouldn't try to stretch these anecdotes into a conclusion, but it
certainly looks like a trend that's actually well along in development.

Daniel O'Donnell wrote:

[sinp]

> On the Devon Technologies blog "The Balcony" from yesterday:
> <http://www.devon-technologies.com/scripts/wordpress/?p=291>

[sinp]

> "This blog is now also mobile phone ready. In fact, this article was
> posted with my Sony-Ericsson K750i during a walk with our dog."

So I'm supposed to avoid both him and his dog as he is looking at his phone while walking the dog in public?

David Ross

from a philosophical point of view, i like twitter for the connection to the world. i can check out the public timeline at any moment and find 3-4 languages (more amusing if you can read more than english, hint hint, america) talking about experiences not dissimilar to mine. what fun! the brazilian software engineer is also struggling with the windows update. the korean spammer has figured out how annoy twitter readers. and i can practice reading italian by checking pia's posts about living with her mother in firenze. my local friends' tweets come in as text messages and the rest i read when i have time. i'm a fan.

On Jan 16, 2008, at 2:46 AM, David Ross wrote:

> Daniel O'Donnell wrote:
>
> [sinp]
>
>> On the Devon Technologies blog "The Balcony" from yesterday:
>> <http://www.devon-technologies.com/scripts/wordpress/?p=291>
>
> [sinp]
>
>> "This blog is now also mobile phone ready. In fact, this article was
>> posted with my Sony-Ericsson K750i during a walk with our dog."
>
> So I'm supposed to avoid both him and his dog as he is looking at
> his phone while walking the dog in public?

I think it's more important that you avoid driving where he is walking
the dog and iPhone simultaneously. Front end damage is expensive to
repair these days.

   --John

--On January 16, 2008 2:46:30 AM -0800 David Ross
<drdavidrossconsultant.com> wrote:

>> "This blog is now also mobile phone ready. In fact, this article was
>> posted with my Sony-Ericsson K750i during a walk with our dog."
>
> So I'm supposed to avoid both him and his dog as he is looking at his
> phone while walking the dog in public?
>

I dunno, the dog walks i've been on there have been sufficient "sniff
stops" to enable twittering pretty easily and safely while not walking.