{"id":414,"date":"2008-10-30T16:23:54","date_gmt":"2008-10-30T21:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poojanwagh.opalstacked.com\/poojanblog\/?p=414"},"modified":"2008-10-30T16:23:54","modified_gmt":"2008-10-30T21:23:54","slug":"the-non-utility-of-twitter-mark-horstman-twitter-i-don%e2%80%99t-like-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/the-non-utility-of-twitter-mark-horstman-twitter-i-don%e2%80%99t-like-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The non-utility of twitter | Mark Horstman: “Twitter, I Don’t Like It”"},"content":{"rendered":"

For me, the problem isn’t so much attention, it’s SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). There’s just too much noise in Twitter to make out any signal. And that’s<\/em> why it’s not worth following while you work.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mark Horstman<\/a> says “Twitter, I don’t like it”<\/h2>\n

I’ve got to say that Mark Horstman at Manager Tools<\/a> makes a point that I’ve learned surprisingly<\/span> quickly. I am<\/strong> a member of twitter, identi.ca, and army.twit.tv. I have to say, though, that I generally use it as email. I do send updates of what I’m doing and done as I feel the need. (These updates sometimes also go to FaceBook and LinkedIn.) However, I don’t watch twitter all day long. I start Twhirl<\/a> at the end of the day or when I need a break at work<\/span> to see if anyone messaged anything cool during the day or if anyone responded to one of my messages.<\/p>\n

I am also disappointed in its utility. The fact is that there are too many people saying “<\/span>just walked my dog” or <\/span>“ate breakfast” or <\/span>“am going to sleep” to make it useful.<\/span> These pedestrian messages are noise. I don’t learn anything from knowing that you ate breakfast.<\/p>\n

Does it have to be this way?<\/h2>\n

Of course it doesn’t have to be this way: if people would generally post only useful or informative stuff (signal), then Twitter would be much better. Even then, though, I don’t see the utility of having the information in real-time.<\/p>\n

I should say at this point that very few people I know are on Twitter. I basically go there just to see what’s out there, not to interact with my friends. I think it probably is a great tool for interacting with friends–especially ones that are nearby–so the real-time notification is more useful.<\/p>\n

I have to say that I have good hopes for Yammer<\/a>. I know I’ve posted things that are useful for those working at Motorola to Yammer’s Motorola group; of course, I’m biased<\/span>. It seems that part of the problem is that Twitter is public: you start with a massive group of people and then try to find people that share your interests. What would be better is if you started your own group of people around some smaller conversation and then grew it to a larger size. I’m seriously thinking of doing this over at my CircuitDesign<\/a> web site. To that extent, laconi.ca<\/a> and OpenMicroBlogger<\/a> seem to be uniquely suited.<\/p>\n

The utility of Twitter<\/h2>\n

The utility of twitter\/laconi.ca\/openmicroblogger that make them better than email or mailing lists is that you are able to subscribe to specific people. If I post to twitter, not everyone gets that update–only people that want it. Contrast that with a mailing list, where if someone posts, everyone<\/em> gets the update. Given that, I think it still has a unique value. I just don’t think it’s worth tracking in real-time.<\/p>\n

I also think that twitter search<\/a> is useful in finding topic posts<\/em> that might interest you. Note that you can get an RSS feed for these searches that you can then read at your leisure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For me, the problem isn’t so much attention, it’s SNR (signal-to-noise ratio). There’s just too much noise in Twitter to make out any signal. And that’s why it’s not worth following while you work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[119,18,41,221,118],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-web","category-work","tag-attention","tag-distraction","tag-manager-tools","tag-productivity","tag-twitter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poojanblog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}