Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Help me figure out if I'm using this confounded contraption wrongly (and stay off my lawn, youngster!).
My angst has to do with the number of folks to follow, and how many folks follow me.
I can wrap my head around having a small group of people who know one another following each other. If I have 30 friends I guess I can glance over at 30 or 40 tweets a day and expect they will read mine if they are getting the same amount.
But Twitter doesn't seem to work that way. The people following me have thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of followers!
Unless they have no life, or are getting paid by the number of tweets read, I wonder if people with so many followers don't actually read anyone else's tweets. Can they expect that people with just as many followers read theirs?
I suspect that people who have 20,000 followers and are following 20,000 people are proudly tweeting away to a readership that never reads one of their tweets. How would anyone interested in what they have to say even see the tweet, considering that if everyone tweeted twice a day their page is blowing up with 40,000 tweets every 24 hours?
I know celebrities have media folks like TMZ paying people to read their tweets.
For regular folks, I posit a theory: The number of people who read your tweets shrinks in inverse proportion to the number of followers your followers gain.
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Nov '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
I consider myself a technology evangelist, and I am hip to the social networking. But twitter I simply do not get.
Mar '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
I think that's right. I did a little experiment a couple of months back. I had 50 followers. I tweeted 'My beloved followers - if any of you read this tweet, I'd love you to do a quick reply to say that you have.'
I got three replies.
James Lileks' tweets would be read (James Lileks' graffiti on the back of toilet doors would be read!), and some insiders perhaps with nuggets of good information. For the rest, I suspect it is largely broadcasting to an unreading audience. I'm hardly ever tweeting now.
Jan '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Twitter seems to be helpful if you're trying to overthrow your regime, get a flash mob together (for fun or criminal activity) - other than that it seems to be for the narcissist who thinks every other person in the world is interested in what they think.
Mar '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
To illustrate re Lileks: here's a recent one of his that I retweeted:
'Watching "Chinatown." Still pains me when Jake rips a page out of the abstract in the Hall of Records. Historical version of nostril slit.'
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Stephen Dawson: To illustrate re Lileks: here's a recent one of his that I retweeted:
'Watching "Chinatown." Still pains me when Jake rips a page out of the abstract in the Hall of Records. Historical version of nostril slit.' · Jun 15 at 7:44pm
How do you know when LIleks tweets? I guess that's the point I'm getting at.
Is it by chance that you looked at your page when his was on there? Do you search him out? Is there a Lileks alarm?
May '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
This might explain things a bit: if you use Twitter long enough you accumulate a lot of followers. Many of them are 'internet marketers' whose talent for marketing doesn't seem to extend much beyond spamming people on Twitter. Other followers are random 'teenage girls' who probably aren't, and semi-interested people who kinda like some of the things you say. The rest are your actual friends & fans. And you'll notice, if you follow 100 other accounts your feed gets so crowded it's impossible to read every single tweet, 24/7.
Jan '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
James Lileks is a treasure.
Twitter? Sorry I have no idea, although this sounds like the type of navel gazing I enjoyed long before marijuana was medicinal.
May '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
You are not being thick (unless I am, too). I've accumulated about 1000 followers, and I follow about that many people. Occasionally, I unfollow or block obivous spammers; doing that to real conservatives never happens--especially if they are beautiful woman.
The only people whose tweets I look at regularly, maybe 75, are on a Twitter List I created--Blog Savants.
The other think is to use an app like Tweetdeck
Oh, I'm @ParisParamus.
Nov '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
I don't get following a 100o people. What's the point of following people that you're uninterested in what they have to say?
May '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
ParisParamus:
The other thing is to use an app like Tweetdeck
I use TweetDeck. It automatically updates every few minutes. And it allows you to sort people you're following into categories for easier reading. So, for example, if you follow David Limbaugh as I do, you can give David his own column. That man loves to talk. TweetDeck also shortens links and simplifies Twitter in a variety of other ways.
If someone hadn't recommended TweetDeck to me before I joined Twitter, I doubt I would have stuck with it.
Twitter is excellent for sharing links to articles and such. It's also a remarkable networking tool. Communication on Twitter is slightly more real-time than Facebook. It's difficult to explain, but it is somehow more effective than Facebook at some things. Everyone I know in PR and advertising swears by it (among other tools).
It has a variety of uses, but it's certainly not for everyone. Try TweetDeck, Tommy, and see if it suits you.
May '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
I tend to follow anyone who has retweeted something I've tweeted (or replied to one of my tweets. Why partially to show appreciation, partially for the conceit that all those people will, at some point be interested in what I tweet, be it interesting or funny. There's no downside (especially with lists for people I really want to read), but yes, it's someone of a conceit, I agree.
What I would like is an app that allows to easily unfollow accounts that I follow that are either very inactive, or actually spam-ish, or automated.
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Aaron Miller
ParisParamus:
The other thing is to use an app like Tweetdeck
I use TweetDeck. It automatically updates every few minutes. And it allows you to sort people you're following into categories for easier reading. So, for example, if you follow David Limbaugh as I do, you can give David his own column. That man loves to talk. TweetDeck also shortens links and simplifies Twitter in a variety of other ways.
If someone hadn't recommended TweetDeck to me before I joined Twitter, I doubt I would have stuck with it.
Twitter is excellent for sharing links to articles and such. It's also a remarkable networking tool. Communication on Twitter is slightly more real-time than Facebook. It's difficult to explain, but it is somehow more effective than Facebook at some things. Everyone I know in PR and advertising swears by it (among other tools).
It has a variety of uses, but it's certainly not for everyone. Try TweetDeck, Tommy, and see if it suits you. · Jun 15 at 8:45pm
I will try TweetDeck Aaron and thanks. Is that something I download to my computer and phone?
Jun '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Tommy De Seno
For regular folks, I posit a theory: The number of people who read your tweets shrinks in inverse proportion to the number of followers your followers gain. ·
More like, the number of people who follow you is in inverse proportion to the number of friends you have in real life.
-or-
the number of people who follow you is in inverse proportion to the number of women you've talked to face to face (star trek and LOST conventions don't count)
Jun '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Tommy De Seno
I will try TweetDeck Aaron and thanks. Is that something I download to my computer and phone? · Jun 15 at 8:58pm
Yeah Aaron, thanks a bunch. Say, should I set this phaser to stun or to kill?
Sep '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Tommy De Seno
Twitter is excellent for sharing links to articles and such. It's also a remarkable networking tool. Communication on Twitter is slightly more real-time than Facebook. It's difficult to explain, but it is somehow more effective than Facebook at some things. Everyone I know in PR and advertising swears by it (among other tools).
It has a variety of uses, but it's certainly not for everyone. Try TweetDeck, Tommy, and see if it suits you. · Jun 15 at 8:45pm
I will try TweetDeck Aaron and thanks. Is that something I download to my computer and phone? · Jun 15 at 8:58pm
Tommy - Babbage recently wrote an interesting summary of Twitter for The Economist. Hold the magazine or iPad at arm's length while reading it of course. Twitter is like a massive Chicago commodity traders' pit with everyone yelling. I only go into the pit sporadically but you can glean some tidbits that are worthwhile. Have a go, and see how you like it.
Edited on Jun 15, 2011 at 9:35pmJun '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
The advantage to Twitter is that it gives you a heads-up about things you want a heads-up about. And to make that a little easier, you follow people with the same interests, people more obsessive than you, who you know will start tweeting feverishly when an interesting something happens in the world of surfing, theology, Minnesota politics, fill in the blank. It is the first place you hear about things. The trick is to find the news, and understand what it means. At the exact time that Bin Laden was taking his last breath, some guy in Pakistan was reporting, on Twitter, that low-flying helicopters were going right over his house. "Odd...normally a quiet neighborhood."
Jul '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
I have two accounts, one with my Ricochet identity to track Ricochet lists & members, making sure I don't overlook stuff from the community here, and another for political exchange and debate and miscellaneous where I follow several hundred people, some for very different reasons. Steve Martin & Bill Cosby are mostly for laughs, but Bill gets political at times, in a good way. Andrew Breitbart because he is ten times the web experience of Charlie Sheen when he's in that mood.
When I'm working a crash project I might not be on in days or weeks, but when I come back I can check on the latest tweets by user, pick up a conversation and track it back if it looks interesting.
I follow a couple of dozen bloggers and whatnot in Arab Spring countries, foreign news, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, etc. When Boehner tweeted about the "great" job numbers in March I called him on ignoring the ongoing shrinkage of the overall work force in a growing population. (These guys don't have time to track every issue, either.)
When news hits, its like the ultimate call tree of people sharing data back and forth.
Edited on Jun 15, 2011 at 9:44pmJul '10
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Read every tweet? Pffft. I have actually had nightmares where I was consigned to the infernal nether regions until I read every Twitter post. But I better know what Mrs. Sisyphus posted.
Just like Facebook, there are those who mistakenly equate huge followings with success. But I already mentioned Sheen last post.
Mar '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Tommy De Seno
Stephen Dawson: To illustrate re Lileks: here's a recent one of his that I retweeted:
'Watching "Chinatown." Still pains me when Jake rips a page out of the abstract in the Hall of Records. Historical version of nostril slit.' · Jun 15 at 7:44pm
How do you know when LIleks tweets? I guess that's the point I'm getting at.
Is it by chance that you looked at your page when his was on there? Do you search him out? Is there a Lileks alarm? · Jun 15 at 7:47pm
Purely by chance in my case. Of course, you don't even need to be on Twitter to follow someone once you have their address. You can just go to Lileks' feed.
But that rather defeats the (obscure) purpose of Twitter.
Feb '11
Re: Do Twitter Accounts Grow To Obsolescence?
Twitter for me is a mostly way to know what is freshly posted. James Taranto posts his column, then tells us on Twitter so I know when to look at it. Same for others, though most are less prompt.
Some of the genealogy stuff gets to me only through Twitter.
And Instapundit tweets lead me to read maybe 25% of their stuff.