Simeon Says

It seems there are few people who have not heard of Twitter these days. Twitter is an interesting concept and you either get it and love it, or don’t. I didn’t. I’ll be honest. I signed up because all the cool kids where doing it. That seems like such a long time ago now. Remembering time before Twitter is like trying to remember before I could touch type. Its just doesn’t seem like that time could really have ever existed. If you are one of the people who get it then jump on and follow @simbateman and we can be friends. For those of you who don’t get it, read on and lets see if I can paint a picture for you.

At its base Twitter aims for each user to answer one simple question: “What are you doing right now?” and I answer the call of that question around once an hour. When I heard about this site I could not believe how mundane this sounded. But like I said the cool kids got it so there must be some merit. I started following people I knew. Following means I see their updates in my main feed. Then I noticed that using the @ symbol people were responding to other users tweets. So I look up who the user is and scan their list of recent updates. Sometimes it would appear this person had similar interests to what I do, so I would follow them too. At first I really just listened. I updated a couple times a week, and that was plenty. Then something changed. Maybe it was critical mass in the number of friends I had, but I found that I was constantly curious to see what my twitter buddies were doing. I started checking the site on my phone. Then I enabled sms notifications. Next thing I know I wrote an application that would allow me to monitor my twitter buddies all the time. I was hooked.

In a very short time I stopped asking people for their email and started asking new people I met if they twittered. It made so much more of a connection with someone because I can arbitrarily comment on the goings on of their day. Without notice I had a running commentary on what was going on with my friends all the time. The whole phenomenon has all but replaced IM and email for most of my communication with friends. It’s instant and all-reaching without forcing me into anything.

Consider this, in the distributed world of the web, our personal connections are far reaching. It’s very easy to loose touch or feel out of sync with your friends. We are busy people and sometimes it’s hard to do those proactive things like remember to write your grandmother who is in another state. But what if when you thought about it you could go online and in a few minute be caught up on whatever is going on in her life? On whatever schedule you like to keep and without spending any more time than you wish. Now picture this cycle with everyone you know. If you want to, you can keep with everyone you know (that has a Twitter account).

From the other side, whenever I reconnect with people I find myself telling the same few stories over and over again. When I meet up with the folks who I Twitter with, not only do I not have to recount those stories so that we will have something to build conversation on, they already know and we can start working on new experiences (to share with everyone else on Twitter).

As you gain new friends on Twitter you may find that it becomes hard to keep up. I know I did. So I want to throw out a couple tips that help me out:

• First, there are friends and their are followers. Friends are people you follow and follow you back. Followers are people who follow you but you don’t follow back. Don’t be afraid to not follow people you don’t know.
• In your Twitter settings specify that you want to see all replies, not just those from in your list. That way if someone you dont follow says something to you, you’ll get the message.
• Notifications are really cool. Knowing when your friends post can really keep you in touch and allow you to respond in real time to questions or to offer opinions.
• If you are really taking advantage of twitters social aspects, you are going to follow lots of people. Not all of them are going to be your friends in the real world. This is actually half the fun of Twitter. Its easy to meet people who share your ideas and views, but you don’t need an SMS when they are brushing their teeth. When you follow someone, make sure you set notifications to off if you don’t want an SMS at 2AM when the drunk twittering is thick. Funny as it will be, it will still be funny over your morning coffee.

I only partake in two social networks Twitter for fun, and Linked-in for building professional relationships. I think its important to make the most of the time you spend online. I really feel like Twitter offers me a real time connection with people that I can’t get with the other social tools. I hope that my idea’s may help you to understand Twitter better, and perhaps even get more out of your time with the service. It’s taken some time to get a good balance in notification and not being overwhelming, so if you have any additional tips to share, post them below in the comments.