Twitter-real value or trivia dump?

[shootingstar]

Ok..I'm beginning to question the value of twitter. As soon as I signed up and made my twitter access "open", a Russian guy wanted to friend me.

Forget it.

Right now our twitter account is set in one-direction, for tweeting out. Simply because I'm afraid of getting a barrage in email box of tweet messages of followers which won't be relevant.

How do you manage people who can friend you? Just give your twitter access only to people that you know? I already have heard from some folks (not in TE) who just gave up on Twitter because it just wasted their time dealing with sifting useful from useless tweets.

And this is for business purposes. Not even for my own personal purposes.

Your twitter experiences would be appreciated.

[softthings]

we have a twitter account for the salon. we only do outgoing messages though. we also have a facebook linked up to it and an email address. people contact us on facebook and email, but haven't said much about the twitter account. this is a small town and i am not sure how "hip" people are to the twitter yet....

[tulip]

I had a twitter account for a short time so that I could follow a grant application from a government agency--they did there announcements by twitter sometimes. That's all I used it for and I haven't used it since that grant announcement was made (not by twitter anyways).

I had facebook for a few months, but dropped that, too. It wasn't taking me to positive places and I found it a real drag on my time and energy.

[badger]

I've avoided things like Myspace and Facebook all this time, and now Twitter. I'm happy to say I've kept my life quite simple by not signing up to things like that.

I have a hard enough time having quiet, alone time where I'm not in front of the computer or in front of a t.v. as it is.

I need to read books more!!

[Veronica]

I have a friend who tweets when she's going out for a long ride and when she gets back. She doesn't have family in town and I like knowing that she's gotten back safely. She also tweeted every day that she was on RAGBRAI. It was cool to see her pictures and get little snippets of trivia about the ride.

We don't follow people who tweet about what they are doing every 15 minutes.

Veronica

[shootingstar]

Based on what you said Veronica, then you do get other people's tweets in your email basket because you have allowed email access to your twitter ID by others to send email to you.

Otherwise one could just look at friend's twitter public page to see her tweets about her trip.

Badger, I'm slowly reading 2 books ..and savouring them. Both about the northwest coast, blend of travel and wildlife observation. So non-techie incommunicado-oriented.

After all, I'm the person that doesn't have a cell phone but aware we have to make our blogs mobile user-friendly... :rolleyes:

[Veronica]

I don't get the tweets in my e mail. I go to a web site to look at them. Non public tweets come to us and we get notified when someone starts following us via e mail.

[PamNY]

I thought about signing up for Twitter for birdwatching -- a lot of info is shared that way. A couple of bloggers that I follow tweet when they update.

But I decided to do things the old-fashioned way for now. Bookmarking and checking occasionally is not that hard. Come to think of it, I need to ask the bird bloggers how many Twitter followers they have ended up with.

Some of the regular birders talked about tweeting while we are in the park, but for now my pals are just texting. I like to keep my life simple, and I seriously don't want to deal with random people wanting to "friend" me.

[crazycanuck]

I don't use twitter but it's been hard not to follow it here in Aust over the past 5 weeks..Some of the comments about the campaign and today's election results are hilarous! Sitting here almost in tears as some are classic!

I think twitter just provides some comedic remedy (i think that's what it's called) for life in general.

[channlluv]

There's just not a whole lot I do that warrants a global shout out.

Roxy

[withm]

Somehow using the terms "Twitter" and "real value" in the same sentence does not compute.

[Veronica]

Somehow using the terms "Twitter" and "real value" in the same sentence does not compute.


Funny - someone I follow just tweeted asking for advice on places to bike to and stay overnight near where she lives. Having lived near her, I could give some advice.

Maybe you're following the wrong people.

Veronica

[emily_in_nc]

It all depends on who you follow, as Veronica says. There's a lot of noise on Twitter, but some interesting stuff too. I enjoy following bike racers like Lance, Levi, Dave Zabriskie, Robbie McEwen, George Hincapie etc. I also enjoy following my friends, other Boston Terrier folks (who post some really cute photos), some weather and news outlets, green/eco sites, and some folks who watch the same TV shows I do and comment on those.

I can pop in when I want and ignore it most of the time. I use it only from my computer, not my cell phone. For me, I think it's less time-intensive than Facebook would be, which is why I haven't signed up for FB yet.