Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 2:59AM It's been interesting watching the evolution of Twitter amongst some people. In some cases it's evolved from a service that allows people to post observations/thoughts/news about one off subjects, into a public instant messaging forum. It's really hit home in the last few weeks, especially when following tweets from some of the LIM regulars - you know who you are :-)
It's like the old days of IM clients, but whereas they were largely closed conversations, you now follow sometimes quite extensive and often protracted real time conversations between users. I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing - obviously if the topic is something I'm interested in I'll chip in too, but sometimes it's irritating as my timeline fills up with one dominant exchange between two or three users.
And the other thing....where do people find the time to do this?
Simon
All News
Reader Comments (4)
I work fa om home and my work computer is on the same desk as my home computer, it's easy to keep up with Twitter even when I'm working (as some of you know all too well). The only time I'm "quiet" on Twitter is when I have to travel for meetings and I only have my work laptop with me (I don't do ANY personal stuff on my work computer). Trying to keep up on my phone when I actually have to participate in meetings or teach a class is pretty much impossible so I don't even try when I'm away from my home computer.
Depending on your Twitter client, you can mute topics or even users. I do this occasionally with one local person that I follow who is a political fanatic. She can post hundreds of tweets a day and sometimes I do have to mute her so I don't see her tweets for a while, especially when things get going between us LIMers. When things slow down, I'll unmute her and catch up on her posts. Plume for Android allows muting of topics, users and apps, so if things get too annoying, you can mute things for awhile. I'm sure other Twitter clients allow this as well - it's a right handy feature! Unfortunately, my desktop client doesn't have a mute function.
But I actually enjoy the IM like nature of Twitter and that's part of what makes Twitter so engaging and fun for me. Not to mention that some certain Brits I could mention are pretty interesting fellows! :-)
That's the beauty of twitter. If you're busy then you don't reply. Have a spare few minutes then its great. Some superb people on twitter. I personally keep my follower count low to manage timeline better.
I certainly enjoy the discourse between LIMers on Twitter... even if I sometimes only read without commenting.
Would be interesting to setup a LIM circle on Google+ although I think I'm one of the few plussers on LIM.
I just closed my G+ account for the 4th time a few days ago. G+ for me is a wasteland - Twitter has been far more engaging. I guess if I could find the right people to put in Circles it'd be more entertaining, but almost no one I know on Twitter is also on G+ and the couple that are are more active on Twitter and virtually absent on G+.