Twitter scares me… almost as much as eBay does
I wandered past my friend Mark Silva’s blog today and noticed him both linking to Steve Rubel’s Twitter Stream and also that his own Twitter Stream is in the upper right hand corner of his blog.
On one hand, Twitter scares the hell out of me– who HAS that kind of time? How present do I want to be to my friends and acquaintances? How much do I care what their every passing thought is.
On the other hand, I do kinda like those Facebook status updates… and isn’t that sort of the same thing?
The vast chasm of time-suckness beckons to me.
This is why I’m scared of eBay. It would take so little for me to become obsessed, and the children would miss me and I’d need to buy a bigger house.
By the way, if you read this and think, “uh, Twitter? What’s a Twitter” then read Mark’s iMedia article on it from last summer.
9 Responses to “Twitter scares me… almost as much as eBay does”
1 2.0ptimizing Blog, Twitter, Facebook « SoV-Share of Voice 23 January 2008 @ 7:42 am
[...] 23, 2008 · No Comments Over at his Mediavorous blog, Brad Berens is having trepidations about the encroachment of 2.0verload on his personal space. He believes that [...]
2 silva 23 January 2008 @ 7:48 am
Hey Brad, thanks for visiting. I created a post that might help ease your 2.0verload concerns:
http://marksilva.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/20ptimizing-blog-twitter-facebook/
It should get easier, not harder; take less time not more. Cheers! silva
3 Nanette 23 January 2008 @ 9:00 am
I like Twitter. I don’t use it as often as my other friends do, but I typically “tweet” once a day or so. And you can add it as a friend on your instant messenger system so it’s really easy to send one-off thoughts.
4 Chris Brogan… 23 January 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Twitter’s a pulsepoint. You don’t HAVE to sit and read all of it. You could just dip in and look around and get out, or search via terraminds.com for keywords or things of interest, or mine it for URLs to cool links via a Yahoo! Pipe.
Or you could bob in, say hi to a few folks, and scram. : )
BTW, Steve Rubel sent me via Twitter.
5 Nadine 23 January 2008 @ 2:31 pm
I like Twitter too. I follow my choice of dailies and get the headlines one at a time, I can read the articles if I’m interested. And I enjoy checking the links posted by other selected tweeters. Some of them I would never go and fetch on my own.
6 Brent 24 January 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Nanette’s point is a good one, which I’ll elaborate in two ways:
1) All things in moderation. I have some Facebook friends who change their status update between hourly and several times a day. That borders on excess, and if Twitter encourages that excess, then it is a bit too much. However, I do not mind the updates the way Facebook presents it, especially because it does help me know what is going on with friends. In fact, in one case, it allowed me to know a friend was coming into town on business and we were able to coordinate a quick visit!
2) Integration with other things. Twitter’s updates can be seen on Facebook, and, since I’ve started viewing Facebook’s “News-Feed” regularly, it is integrated with other activities. That integration adds value. If it were not integrated with other things, it wouldn’t have enough draw.
7 Susan Bratton 24 January 2008 @ 5:13 pm
Brad,
I’m a Twitter fanatic. I wish you would post more, because I want to know all about you too.
I find you endlessly fascinating. http://mediavorous.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_lol.gif
Seriously.
It’s so much fun to express oneself with the rigor of 140 characters – it takes the pressure off.
So Twiter Me!
Suz
http://Twitter.com/SusanBratton
8 Jen, writer MembershipMillionaire.com 24 January 2008 @ 7:13 pm
I personally don’t have a Twitter going on in my own blog but I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t have an idea of what twitter is. It’s all over the net. I’m not sure if it’s something to be taken seriously. I always thought that it was just used to see how other people are doing. Out of the blue when one has nothing else to do…
9 silva 25 January 2008 @ 8:07 am
Hi, as this thread moved more to when/why twitter, here’s a post I offered to adweek’s blog post by @bmorrissey:
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/01/embrace-your-fa.html
updated thoughts on twitter:
1) i like it as a public record my kids will be able to timeline. jung said that no one really needs psychoanalysis. they just need to die and then we can understand all we need to know by what that person did. twitter asks, “what are you doing?” so there i am. might consider that filter for your nephew that’s on his way…
2) i have twitter permissions set to update my facebook status line. it’s a two-fer. tim brunelle does this as well to good effect. am going to have my guys work a hack to remove “is twittering” to the status post using their api in freetime. fact is no one is twittering, that’s short sighted brand ham-fisting by twittercorp.
3) the people i like to follow most are those that add value (scobles, rubel mostly) and those that add stimulus (jaffe, brunelle, sometimes even ev). it’s a “picture-in-picture” social graph feed if you use the twitter app in facebook.
4) i like to find people of interest from other people of interest. people like daniel stein, david armano or tom ajello share my short attention span, so people that they’re following are often a good place to start.
btw, it’s a no brainer for anyone publishing content (like S Bratton).
thanks again for the post. cheers! silva