Weekend Open Forum: Do you (still) Twitter?

[Julio Franco]

From the early days of the blogosphere, there's always been a fashionable Web company everybody seems to love talking about, justifiably or not. In most cases we've tried to steer clear from these trends, like with Twitter, giving the Web service its fair share of coverage while remaining skeptical on its long-term viability as a standalone product.

Regardless of our opinions, it remains a fact that Twitter has experienced tremendous growth over the last couple of years, surpassing every competing social network except for the two monsters that are Facebook and MySpace.

Depending on who you ask, you might be told that Twitter is used for personal micro-blogging, as a promotional tool, RSS reader replacement, as a live search engine, among the many other uses people have come up with for the 140-character messages.

However, it's no coindidence I'm asking you about Twitter this late in the game. Despite its popularity, Twitter seems to suffer from poor retention rates. Users often discover it and find the concept appealing enough to register an account, only to drop it a day, a week or a few months later to never come back. This happened to me and is happening by the thousands, so we ask you, do you (still) Twitter?

Feel free to share your account in the comments, and let us know what your thoughts are on the platform as a whole. Discuss.

PS: TechSpot's Twitter (our news headlines in real-time) / Julio's Twitter (almost never updated :)).

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https://www.techspot.com/news/37915-weekend-open-forum-do-you-still-twitter.html

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I found the premise to Twitter somewhat appealing and registered a while back. I wound up not using the service at all -- not a single person followed or following. In fact, I don't even remember my account information.

I think I registered to funnel information from useful or interesting sources, but after looking around I realized there's far more junk being exchanged than anything of true value -- at least to me. If you're fascinated by what actors eat for lunch then all the power to you.

For the record, I've never been especially interested in social networking sites. I made my first MySpace account a little over a year ago, and deleted the profile less than a week later.

While I like the thought of having a group of contacts conveniently contained in a single infrastructure that facilitates the sharing of media and knowledge, social networks simply don't work that way -- or so it seems from the outside looking in.

From what I've seen, most people just clutter their pages with seemingly unrelated videos, music, images, games, glitter effects, animated graphics of Betty Boop, and the results to inane quizzes. It's MTV meets the Weekly World News on crack.

Also, "friends" are often added on a whim or with a marketing agenda, and some people have hundreds or thousands of "buddies" on their contact list that they'll never interact with.

I'm probably oversimplifying all of this, and really, it comes down to how an individual utilizes the service. However, I'm inclined to believe that most social network activity is nothing but noise -- noise that I happily live without.

/bitter rant

 

[TomSEA]

I've never twittered although I have an account. Twitter is an incredible dysfunctional application that seems to attract only sports and movie "superstars" and their minions who are so starved for attention (and frankly stupid), that they can only come up with 140 characters to promote themselves.

For Matthew, I don't think you oversimplified anything. It's a piece of crap intended for the utterly simple minded and clueless.

 

[tengeta]

I went to a twitter profile once. By mistake. I have not once used the site and have no plans whatsoever in the future to consider otherwise.

For those that do use it, enjoy. I guess.

 

[mrtraver]

I use it to get updates from my kids' school, so i know when a game is canceled, etc. But that's about it - i've got nothing to say on there.

 

[codefeenix]

I dont tweet, but i check it a few times a week.
newegg sometimes tweets deals.
There is the LHC and their updates.

 

[Timonius]

Never have, never will.

 

[Archean]

I've never bothered to visit twitter / myspace ...... visited uselessbook or whatever it is called only once and that was that for me. Its total wastage of time in my view and is for the kind of people who may grow mustaches for charity or have nothing productive to do.

 

[treeski]

I'm a big fan of Facebook because it allows me to keep up with people that I otherwise wouldn't be able to. But I've never found a big attraction to Twitter, and as is, I can't see myself ever signing up.

 

[Guest]

Twitter sux. I always thought it was overrated.

 

[Clrabbit]

Never twitted, I didn't like being confined to 140 characters, I have gotten into Google buzzing sense I can post images and just use it as a mini personal blog.

 

[spikester48661]

NO WAY! but I will face book a little.

 

[BlackIrish]

@Matthew

You nailed it!

I can only see possible usefulness for Facebook/Twitter if you have long distance relatives and want to stay in contact and not pay huge phone bills.

But still, Skype would be a much more elegant solution. The same goes for business contacts and partners. Email and IM software are fully capable of doing everything.

Finally, I think you can't actually "keep up" with people via a website. It's like brain masturbation - you don't contact talk with them or feel emotions. You just pass on cold information and glitter, so you don't forget each other. But you aren't becoming any closer...

/another rant

 

[maestromasada]

@Matthew

High five!

 

[windmill007]

Twitter is so lame. Myspace use to be ok till facebook come along. Now myspace is dead and facebook rules if they would stop redesigning the site. People who won't try or use facebook are people who hate any technology. I have found so many lost friends and school mates I am still amazed. I like how facebook is starting to integrate into other services on the web. Other businesses need to stop trying to compete with facebook and just find a way to integrate into it. ...yes google I'm talking to you about your twitter wanna be buzz service which was dead before it started!

 

[purplehayz]

Short answer - yes.

Longer answer... I <3 Twitter. I've been on for over 2 years. I've made friends all over the country, which wouldn't have happened via any other existing internet technology. And I've learned a great deal too.

Who could ask for more?

If you want to "talk" with me more I'm purplehayz on Twitter.

Have fun! - Bob

 

[Guest]

At first I didn't like it but now I use it all the time. Nobody follows me (well only 4 people that I've never heard about) but I don't care. I use it to learn about news that I would take a lot of time to find otherwise. I don't follow any star. But I follow a lot of news websites, gossip sites, and some interesting bloggers. All in all I'm glad I have it. It's also nice to see what people think about a program you're watching on TV (The Grammy's, the Olympic Games or your favorite show) or stuff that are happening in real life (like the huge storm in DC) which is why I use a lot the search engine. It helps to have an ipod touch and a good wifi connection to be able to reach Twitter even if you're not in front of your computer...

So, bad first experience, excellent second one.

 

[Phantasm66]

treeski said:
I'm a big fan of Facebook because it allows me to keep up with people that I otherwise wouldn't be able to. But I've never found a big attraction to Twitter, and as is, I can't see myself ever signing up.

Agreed. I think Facebook is useful and a laugh but Twitter is kind of taking the whole thing a bit too far, IMHO.

 

[Guest]

Buzzzzzzing around
i forgot twitter !
google has done an excellent job of integrating buzz with the emails
so u r more likely to check buzz often !

 

[Archean]

I doubt it very much, because I know many people who doesn't use gmail anymore for one or another reason.

 

[DarkCobra]

It's without equal probably the stupidest waste of time imaginable. Suitable for hormone raging juveniles and ***** movie stars who already overvalue their importance. I'm old school and if ya got something relevant to say then just say it, but twittering one's every movement throughout the day is a silly narcissistic game. It's a "fad" that will soon "fade".

 

[fwilliams]

I think I created an account, but never used it. Just another place to login to read a bunch of dribble. I started using buzz, but not sure how much I will use it. At least I do not have to login to a different site to use it.

Will whoever creates these applications (ie gmail, twitter) please come up with a method that I can create my account with out having to come up with some strange user name.

Come on. Let me type the user name I want. The program can assign a random number in some other field to make the record unique. It can also use other fields like address to determine if you already have an account when you are trying to create an account. As far as I know I am the only one in my house with my name. And if people want to be creative and use names like WhiteCobra, does it really matter if there are a couple hundred WhiteCobra's around the world.

 

[SNGX1275]

I don't use it, and I think for person to person contact it wouldn't be something I'd use. But I do think it could be usable as a way to get out information, like one of the above posters said on getting notice of game cancellations, school cancellations, pretty much any news event could be something that twitter would be good for.

 

[captaincranky]

The "Tweet to End all Tweets"........

In the realm of things superficial, irrelevant, *****ic, and inane, Twitter has maxed out the concept.

Accordingly, and in the same way that, WW1 was billed as "the war to end all war", I plan to open a Twitter account, to distribute my message, "Don't any of you imbeciles bother me now, I'm taking a s***"!

 

[ET3D]

No, I'm not a twit. I did register there once for a competition that wanted a retwit, and if someone whose opinion I read and care about mentions his twitter I'll visit it once, but I don't much care for reading the other people's responses. It's not that I mind the shortness, but give me a good RSS feed and I'll follow that.