Why Twitter has as much depth as my fish tank

I am a big twitter user and have found it to be a useful networking tool, but you are definitely right that a tagging system would make it even more useful.

And I like your title! I found your blog from the ProBlogger writing project (which I have entered as well with a post called Jesse Owens Beat the Nazis at their Own Game http://zionismandisrael.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/jesse-owens-beat-the-nazis-at-their-own-game/

Hi Patrick:

Your comments are so on the money its scary.

Far too many of the tweets of people I follow have no interest for me.

Being able to limit tweets that appear on your own page to certain
categories would be a big advance.

I found you through the Problogger project.

Good headline!

Robert A. Kearse

I find the randomness and chaotic nature of both Twitter & Plurk part of their charm. But I do see your point! To each his or her own.

I agree with you completely. I used twitter in the past for a while but it just became a place for useless rambling, and trying to find what I was interested in the most became a problem. I am a reformed twitter user. By the way nice post title, I found you from the ProBlogger group writing project.

I found you through the Problogger contest! It’s a catchy title and an interesting post - personally I love Twitter as it is and think it’s set up well, although obviously it doesn’t suit all people! Take care!

Came in via Problogger - just wanted to say I love the advice you’re giving to Twitter, how you’re not encouraging them to become Plurk but simply saying a few tweaks to the existing interface should better their service.

I’d like to see you take on microblogging/instant communication as a whole, since you raised the issue of “depth.” Something tells me this is a fad - who’s gonna say “remember that awesome Plurk conversation” 5 years later?

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just don’t get the Twitter love (although you have now reminded me that I should go update my weeks old status). Why can’t Twitter update when a new post shows up in a blog? Can it? Do you know? PLEASE TWEET WITH A RESPONSE, argh!!!!

By the way, what’s that you’re drinking?

Interesting…I am not a regular tweeter yet…But I thought you could search for keywords to find people in your niche…eg ‘work at home moms’. May be I am wrong…It has been a while since I visited twitter.

Nice title.

Good luck in the contest.

I signed up. I tried. I really tried. But I could find no real value in Twitter. I’m with you.

Ava Semerau

And God Was Pleased: Biblical Principles for Creating Christian Success

i am struggling with twittermania myself, especially after checking out all of the hundreds of twitterers on problogger. i am only following people who twit about the blogosphere and social media, so i have found it pretty useful. but i am with you on not caring when they go to dinner with the new boyfriend!

Thanks for the comments everyone! I’m really glad to find people have the same frustration that I do. I seriously thought that I was the only one who felt this way and almost didn’t post this. Maybe someday we will see the true potential of Twitter unveiled with a few tweaks here and there. Glad to see everyone coming in from Problogger, I’ll visit all your pages soon!

Also thanks for the great suggestion Ashok! I completely agree with you and have started crafting a post about it.

I liked your title because I just can’t bring myself to use twitter. I wrote an article for problogger also, and it’s about our strengths and what is natural and innate in us. Your title grabbed me because of my strength to connect. I don’t see how you can connect with people on twitter. It seems so distant for me. I was wondering if connecting with people is one of your strengths also and that explains your distaste for twitter? My business partner loves twitter and we have different ways of looking and interacting with the world. This fascinates me and so I am interested in what you think? Does your distaste for Twitter actually speak to one of your strengths?

That is a very interesting point CK Reyes and one that I have never really thought about. As I stated in my post, the lack of being able to connect with individual groups of people is Twitters biggest weakness.

In my personal life I have different groups of friends that I interact with according to what I am doing at the time. I have one group of friends that I have known since high school and feel that I am closest with. Then I have a larger group of friends who I know through different organizations that I am involved with. Finally, I have professional contacts that, while I still consider them my friends, I feel least comfortable with and have to maintain a professional attitude. If I invited everyone over to a party I would be jumping around reminiscing about old times with my friends, thinking about different activities for the organizations I am involved with and talking about business with my professional contacts.

Now, if I stood up and tried to talk to everyone at the same time I really would not know what to say. Talking about old times would leave the rest of the party out of the loop as would speaking about fundraising activities or the lack of progress on a certain business proposal.

Twitter is that party and standing up and speaking to the entire group is exactly what each and every Tweet you write is attempting to accomplish. If I could target my posts to individual groups, I feel the party just got a lot more fun.

I used twitter for a few weeks when I first signed up. It was fun to think that people might actually care what I was doing.

But I quickly came to the same conclusion that you did. It is very superficial and meaningless.

I find that the connections I have on twitter do not really indicate real world relationships as much as other social networks (facebook is a good example).

I do think it’s useful for posting blog links, or promotional stuff. And sometimes it’s fun just to read through and see what random people are doing.

Or finding out who’s doing what withing a 20 mile radius of you on your iPhone.

I completely agree with you and i do not feel that Twitter is useless at all. Twitter is basically a means to an end but I believe that it could use a little depth to be something truly awesome. Thanks for the post though, that i-phone app does seem awesome… yet another reason I am jealous of everyone that has an i-phone