DigitalFanGirl

I stopped using Twitter from Twitter.com a long time ago, but as you can see in the image below (837 new follower requests), I clearly need to make an effort to check it weekly. That is all….

Two years ago today I wrote a blog post titled “My Thoughts on Twitter After Two Years“. I was reading it last night and just thought I’d do a short post to compare how I felt about Twitter in December of 2008 to how I feel about it now in December of 2010.

Twitter asks WHAT ARE YOU DOING? and that’s exactly what people were doing in the beginning and it was great. Then fast forward a year and a half later and everyone is asking how can you monetize Twitter, how does it help your business, who are the best people to follow, how can twitter increase your blog subscribers, etc, etc. In addition certain people were and are still saying “if you’re not adding value, I’m not going to follow you”. The Twitter landscape changed drastically. It’s no longer fun. People were and still are complaining saying there’s too much noise and saying they don’t want to read what someone ate for breakfast and on and on. All this talk = sucking the fun out of Twitter.

Well, this part has gotten that much more insane because every single business out there is trying to figure out the magic and power of Twitter and are spending every waking moment trying to leverage it the best way they can. While I think Twitter is useful for a lot of business; I don’t think every business needs to have a Twitter presence. There is also a huge influx of the “average person” joining twitter. It seems as if all of the people who were once MySpace (I never drank that kool-aid) are now on Twitter. It at times feels like MySpace part two. Over the last year, I haven’t been on Twitter that much at all and I don’t really feel like I’ve missed anything. It’s not that I don’t want to have fun on twitter, but I honestly don’t have the time to tweet. Twitter is most certainly NOT a place to have conversations and I don’t see the point of just throwing out random tweets knowing I won’t have the time to see if anyone tweeted a response nor will I have time to peruse Twitter to look at what anyone else is tweeting. It really comes down to available time or the lack thereof.

These Twitter snobs have really turned me off from Twitter, so I’ve found myself unfollowing several people and trying to find new folks to follow who have less of a Twitter snob attitude.

I did stop following folks who turned out to be twitter snobs, but to be quite frank; I’m just sick and tired of hearing about Twitter. For many people, Twitter is brand new to them and they’re really excited about it. They’re in the honeymoon phase with Twitter and I get it. However, Twitter is not new to me. I’ve already had my highs and lows with it and at it’s just kind of annoying hearing about Twitter every second of every day. It’s like I can’t escape it. It’s a complete overload.

I’m sure Twitter will be around for a while, so in two more years I’ll do a six year look at my experience and feelings about Twitter. We’ll see if anything drastic has changed with my activity as well as the popularity Twitter has gained over the last couple years.

What has your Twitter experience been like? Are you still on it or over it?

I am writing this post fron my BlackBerry Curve for the first time. Let’s see if it really works.

I joined Twitter in November of 2006. I wanna say it was Thanksgiving day, but I cannot recall. I think Twitter actually launched in March or May of 2006, so when I got on there it was pretty new. No one I knew was on Twitter or had even heard of Twitter. I used Twitter, but I didn’t get obsessed with it until the summer of 2007. From November 2006 til that time I was following people who shared similar interests and making some new Twitter friends.

For the first year and a half I really enjoyed Twitter. People were fun, it was a very light-hearted landscape and I had a blast on it.

Now, for those who don’t know what Twitter is (I don’t see how you couldn’t these days. Even mainstream media has caught the Twitter bug). Twitter is a microbloggibg service that allows you to write a message in 140 characters. Twitter asks one thing and one thing only: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

So, in the beginning Twitter was fun and people were having a good time and it was a cool place to be. Well, I can no longer say it’s 100% fun and it’s definitely more annoying at times and it’s mainly because of the attitudes of certain people.

Let me explain so you understand exactly what I’m talking about. Let me also preface this by saying sometimes us techie folks and these self-proclaimed gurus or marketing superstars have the ability to literally suck the fun out of everything. I mean every damn thing.

Twitter asks WHAT ARE YOU DOING? and that’s exactly what people were doing in the beginning and it was great. Then fast forward a year and a half later and everyone is asking how can you monetize Twitter, how does it help your business, who are the best people to follow, how can twitter increase your blog subscribers, etc, etc. In addition certain people were and are still saying “if you’re not adding value, I’m not going to follow you”. The Twitter landscape changed drastically. It’s no longer fun. People were and still are conplaining saying there’s too much noise and saying they don’t want to read what someone ate for breakfast and on and on. All this talk = sucking the fun out of Twitter.

I have a few points. Let’s not forget what Twitter asks. Say it with me: WHAT ARE YOU DOING? So for those saying they don’t want to read what someone ate for breakfast or dinner I say: When a company starts a business that provides a service that asks you write what you’re doing in 140 characters, what do you expect. There are rules to Twitter. You don’t have to be a phd to join Twitter and Twitter isn’t asking anyone to write 140 character thesis, so when people on Twitter start talking about if you’re not adding value I’m not going to follow you – I say get over yourself. All this talk is really quite sickening and annoying. Twitter was a fun place and now you have these Twitter snobs measuring the value of a tweet and making you feel like crap if you haven’t found a way to boost your business using Twitter. To those people I say: have you ever thought maybe, just maybe, some people like to use Twitter as their water cooler?
Go figure.

These Twitter snobs have really turned me off from Twitter, so I’ve found myself unfollowing several people and trying to find new folks to follow who have less of a Twitter snob attitude.

I still use Twitter, but not nearly as much as I did a year ago. I also follow some really great people. Some of them Tweet about politics, food, DC/MD/VA happenings, web resources, wordpress stuff, family stuff, and many just tweet about any and everything. I enjoy them all and think they all have valuable tweets and they make it fun for me to be a part of Twitter.

How has your experience been on Twitter?