Twitter (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Twitter

[Bonkers]

I had the same thoughts as you initially, hearing about twitter and never getting around to setting it up, thinking it was just another waste of time (like facebook seems to be).

Finally set it up last week and im loving it! Great way to keep in contact with others about the latest happenings and I've already discovered 5+ awesome blog posts/products that I probably wouldn't have found otherwise.

My twitter is:

Twitter / timjrobinson

for all those interested in personal development and/or internet marketing/blogging.

Cheers, Tim

[seeker5]

Hah! I heard another poster on here recently say something about how you should use twitter and I thought "hell no, that seems pretty stupid, he'll never do something that dumb"

However, reading your blog post now makes it seem like it might be interesting and beneficial! I've added your twitter RSS to my RSS reader, congrats to being the first twitter account I'll monitor and read

[Steve Pavlina]

I think Twitter would only make sense if I use it as an extra channel to provide value to people. It seems like a good fit for bloggers who can build a sizable Twitter following. You can justify the minor time investment if you're able to reach a lot of people efficiently.

But if I were to use Twitter as the 2-minute video at Twitter.com suggests, it would just be a waste of time... little more than idle socializing.

I posted a few Twitter updates already.

Is there a way for people to post comments on my Twitter updates? I'm still new at this, but it seems like there should be more interactivity than I'm seeing.

[seeker5]

Hmmm, after reading your post here about your updates, I went to my google reader to see them. I saw no new updates since I last read it. Then I went to the twitter site and saw you had some updates, but they aren't reflected in the google reader. I wonder why. I'm relatively new to google reader, and this is the first twitter account I've added to it.

Yeah, Steve, I have noticed on other twitter accounts where people would write and make comments, but I personally don't know how to do that yet.

[supertom]

i would like to know what books you are reading on that week, and if you had maybe a quick tip thats too short to make a post about.

[Kazeko]

Steve, I'm very glad that you use this Twitter account! For me personally it's very useful, as I always wanted as many these "little details" as possible. It helps me a lot to catch or refresh an image of Steve's way of thinking and living. I often use it for role modelling.

For example, when I saw a post "photoreading a book", I received some "flash visions" (my brain often process data like this). They can be described like "oh, I need to re-consider my reading standards - I should read more and read faster".

So, Steve, please continue Twitter writing

[martin]

I'm actually surprised you went ahead and made one!

[abcZen]

Please don't be one of these twitter users who don't follow anyone and just talks with your blog feed

Join in the conversation

[abcZen]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I think Twitter would only make sense if I use it as an extra channel to provide value to people. It seems like a good fit for bloggers who can build a sizable Twitter following. You can justify the minor time investment if you're able to reach a lot of people efficiently.

But if I were to use Twitter as the 2-minute video at Twitter.com suggests, it would just be a waste of time... little more than idle socializing.

I posted a few Twitter updates already.

Is there a way for people to post comments on my Twitter updates? I'm still new at this, but it seems like there should be more interactivity than I'm seeing.

If you click on the 'replies' tab you will see people who have spoken to you directly

You can also speak to someone by typing @ and then their username i.e. '@stevepavlina' then your message

[HESBON]

HI,
This twitter seems to be a good place to interact from, its good you joined. i have also joined. meet me at
twitter.com/hesbon
thanks

[wulph]

I wonder how many additional "beta testers" timesvr.com got due to Steve's Twitter about it. Hmm, could this be an additional revenue stream?

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by wulph

I wonder how many additional "beta testers" timesvr.com got due to Steve's Twitter about it. Hmm, could this be an additional revenue stream?

At least one from me.

[Remiel]

Can't resist..... Penny Arcade! - Le Twittre



I look forward to hearing how your experiment with twitter goes.

[Tadhg Kelly]

Steve, STOP.

Let me rephrase that in English: Twitter is not a particularly good service for any kind of sharing, conversations or any of that sort of thing. It's very limited, has serious reliability issues, and has a massive noise to signal ratio.

What I recommend is a service called Friendfeed instead. It's a better service in many ways, not the least of which is that it is essentially built for link-sharing and commenting rather than bits-and-pieces like Twitter. It works really well (no downtime issues), is easy to use, and you could set up things like personal development rooms in which groups could contribute together in a fast and clean fashion.

Friendfeed.com

(PS; I'm not afiliated with friendfeed in any way other than as a regular user of the service).

[seeker5]

Steve, I really enjoyed reading today's twitters - especially that quote!

I had to go to twitter.com since my google.com/reader hadn't updated the RSS feed yet.

However, I don't know if I like other people's comments being on it, I'm not sure I'll want to read other people's comments. Maybe I'll get used to skipping their comments, but they look very similar to yours except for the "@" symbol.

[wulph]

Seeker5, those aren't other people's comments; those are Steve's replies to other people's comments. If you click the person's name, it'll take you to his/her Twitter, where you can see the comments to which Steve's responding.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by seeker5

Hah! I heard another poster on here recently say something about how you should use twitter and I thought "hell no, that seems pretty stupid, he'll never do something that dumb"

However, reading your blog post now makes it seem like it might be interesting and beneficial! I've added your twitter RSS to my RSS reader, congrats to being the first twitter account I'll monitor and read

As a rule, most of these new online social network systems look like major time wasters, but when you actually have an audience, you can do some pretty cool things with them.

Without an audience, though, you can't do much and it is indeed a waste of time.

But then, interestingly, if you don't get started, you might never have that audience that lets you do pretty cool things.

Reminds me of something Steve Twittered:

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that things are difficult."
- Seneca the Younger

As a personal rule, I generally tend to jump on the bandwagon of new services that have potential or somehow make my life a bit more interesting than it was before. You never know when they could become much more useful. The more you branch out, even when you don't necessarily derive a direct benefit, the more potential for leverage you have and the more indirect bonuses you get that usually end up having some nice direct bonuses.

One of the nicest indirect bonuses I have in my life is from Toastmasters. I go there to speak, but I actually get more great networking opportunities (really deep ones that are valuable and interesting) and great positive reinforcement. Speaking is just a vehicle for that, and I'd never have that nice indirect bonus if I didn't say, "I'm going for it; it may not be useful directly, but it'll probably have some great indirect benefits."

Now seems like a nice time to plug my Twitter account.
Twitter / bruceachterberg

My profile even has a nice link to my new, updated biography, now with 30% more talent and strength references.

I could do some pretty cool things with a larger audience of interactive followers. The character limit is slowly stealing my soul, but I'm digging the sharing and connectivity aspect. The "recent" tab can keep showing me posts from myself, too; seeing "Bruce Achterberg" so many times on one page is strangely satisfying.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by wulph

Seeker5, those aren't other people's comments; those are Steve's replies to other people's comments. If you click the person's name, it'll take you to his/her Twitter, where you can see the comments to which Steve's responding.

ooooooh ooops!

[Bruce Achterberg]

I have a question for experienced Twitter users, or generally tech savvy people:

So I posted this on Twitter:

I wrote a nice post about Twitter on the great PDSP forums: http://************/69gqwy

The original link I included was:
Twitter (Blog)

I get 404 errors in both IE6 and FireFox 3 when I use the TinyURL link that my original link got automatically converted to (system design 101: always give people options; never force things on people).

What's the issue here, and how can I get around it?

Edit: Ok, so it seems TinyURL is blocked on the forums. Inconvenient. Well, the above link with all the astericks ("***********") still works if you type in tinyurl(dot)com and paste the "/69gqwy" after it.

[wulph]

The tinyurl is (for some reason) converting to a Relative link instead of Absolute. Go to preview.************/69gqwy and you'll see that the target doesn't start with "http://"

Also, when you follow the link, it actually redirects to www.************/www.stevepavlina.com/...

That's where the 404 is coming from.

It seems you Have to include the "http://" on twitter to avoid this.

Edit: The asterisks above are "tinyurl(dot)com"

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by wulph

The tinyurl is (for some reason) converting to a Relative link instead of Absolute. Go to preview.************/69gqwy and you'll see that the target doesn't start with "http://"

Also, when you follow the link, it actually redirects to www.************/www.stevepavlina.com/...

That's where the 404 is coming from.

It seems you Have to include the "http://" on twitter to avoid this.

Edit: The asterisks above are "tinyurl(dot)com"

Thanks for the reply.

From what I can see, the http:// *is* included on Twitter. I'm not sure if you can get around this, but suffice to say, it seems we can't link to the forum with TinyURL links (and Twitter seems to apply them by default, so hmm).

On another inconvenient note, apparently Twitter has "lost" my post about the forum post I wrote (that I quoted in my above post). I've heard about Twitter being unreliable, and "losing posts" seems like quite the deal breaker.

Anybody else have experiences with this? Is it some sort of filtering system Twitter use?

I have been posting a fair few links, but none were posted prior to the first link I posted. Perhaps it got deleted because it linked to a 404 page, but that seems strange.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by wulph

I wonder how many additional "beta testers" timesvr.com got due to Steve's Twitter about it. Hmm, could this be an additional revenue stream?

Unless I'm blind, it seems that post is no longer on Steve's Twitter account. (And I saw it yesterday, since that's how I learned about the service, too.)

What's the deal with these mysteriously disappearing Twitter posts?

[Neutral]

We are essentially beta testing their software, before it hits the mainstream.

They're having a hard time scaling the service. There is controversy over the effectiveness of Ruby on the Rails.

Remember, this is free. And ad-free at the moment too.

[wulph]

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

Unless I'm blind, it seems that post is no longer on Steve's Twitter account.

Strange. It does still show up on the RSS feed, so it must be a web interface issue... probably a flaw in the paging mechanism.

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

it seems we can't link to the forum with TinyURL links

I was able to link successfully to a forum post (Twitter / wulph: Test 2: http://************/...) ... try it again maybe? Be sure to manually include the "http://"

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

On another inconvenient note, apparently Twitter has "lost" my post about the forum post I wrote (that I quoted in my above post)

I'm grasping at straws here, but Maybe the system realized the link wasn't valid and deleted the item? I suppose it could just be a huge gaping bug too though.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Beta testing is fine, so long as they label it as such. I was under the impression Twitter was (A) going to stay free, (B) not in beta. They can add ads to their site if they want.

But anyway, thanks, Wulph. I'll play around with it and see if I can get it to work. I'm also busy looking into why we have TinyURL blocked, so if I can help on that front, I'll try.

[Stu]

There's another thread going on here where people are posting their Twitter usernames, for anyone interested in finding some more likeminded twitter friends.

[Ralph]

I love the idea. There's a lot of valuable stuff you can provide that doesn't quite fit for longer posts. Also, I find it interesting to read your "what's up" kind of updates.

[Neutral]

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

Beta testing is fine, so long as they label it as such. I was under the impression Twitter was (A) going to stay free, (B) not in beta. They can add ads to their site if they want.

We're always beta testing software!

Software is never finished. And that's especially true for web apps.

Unfortunately, Twitter hasn't found a way to make money. I assume they use ads, but I recall reading that they wouldn't do that either. So I don't know.

But it's a great service. And as for the criticism, the skepticism is typical of new technologies. We're suspicious, for the same reason we're suspicious of anything new.

When Steve decided to blog people laughed too. Blogging was in it's infancy, and it looked laughable by comparison to the self-help gurus, with big books, seminars and conferences.

Now you can be a top "blogger", and you're considered an authority, on and even off the web.

Why not won't this happen to Twitterers?

Bottom line is, if it's a conscious decision go for it.

Use technology, don't let it use you.

(The last part isn't meant for anyone in particular. I just wanted my thought written down.)

[Patricia]

Steve, what are you using to send updates to Twitter?

I use Twhirl and I love it (in my case, it's of great help since I have separate twitter accounts to post in 2 different languages and Twhirl allows for multiple accounts management - and I like it better than Twitterfox). I have also tried HelloTxt and Ping.fm to cross post to other services (like Plurk, Jaiku, FriendFeed, Facebook, etc), which is a huge time saver.

I'm glad to see you on Twitter, Steve. And like someone already said, JOIN THE CONVERSATION! Twitter is all about those conversations and some of them are really valuable.

Since we're on the subject (even though I posted a thread about it here), if there's anyone who'd like to follow me on Twitter, here's my account: Twitter / patriciamuller.