I won’t tweet, don’t ask me
[T]here are those in this community who are talking about Twitter and online social networking as if … they are a religion.
Sorry, I’m not buying it. But the truth is there are more people out there than not who will never Twitter, who will never have a Facebook, Linked-In or MySpace page. I’ve dabbled in some of this and found much of it to be a waste of my time.
But let me spend time in a downtown coffee shop and I’m guaranteed to meet interesting new people and hear about the latest developments and scoops. Let me spend time mixing with business leaders and shop owners and I’ll get a better understanding of what’s going on in today’s economy than through Twitter and online social networking.
Then again, Steve Lackmeyer works the downtown Oklahoma City beat for the Oklahoman: he’s a reporter of the Old School. Twitter and such are just fine for those of us in the pundit/gasbag community, who need only react to things as they are reported; those who actually have to report those things in the first place need a different skill set and a different set of tools.
Disclosure: I dabble in some of this stuff, specifically to keep in touch with people I won’t necessarily be able to keep in touch with otherwise. (For instance: my children have presences on MySpace, where they’re reachable; for all I know, they may also have Facebook pages, but I don’t go there. In fact, my not going there may actually encourage them to have Facebook pages.)
fillyjonk »
16 February 2009 · 8:41 pm
I don’t Facebook because it would be too weird to have students “friending” me (and would they “de-friend” me if they got a bad grade?)
(As far as I’ve been able to determine, none have run across the blog. Not that I talk about them there except in the most general of terms)
As for Twitter, I fear the 140 character limit would mean most of my posts would be “Oh crap not enough space….”
McGehee »
16 February 2009 · 11:12 pm
Facebook isn’t all that — and there’s nothing that says anyone has to accept a friend request. At least, when I dropped a few dozen off my friend list a few months back only one of them seemed to notice, and she asked why in such a nice way that I added her back.
Twitter just seems like another way of doing something I never do anyway. I did get a Twitter account but only because at the time it was the only way to keep track of what was going on with Blogrolling.com. Once I decided there wasn’t anything happening and I didn’t care anyway, I also discovered there doesn’t seem to be a way to cancel a Twitter account. Maybe I just didn’t look hard enough. Maybe like with the Blogrolling.com thing I just don’t care.
McGehee »
16 February 2009 · 11:13 pm
Anybody wants to find me, they can use Google or Scroogle or whatever. In fact a former high-school classmate of my brother’s recently found me that way, while looking for a way to contact my brother.
ms7168 »
17 February 2009 · 11:30 am
At first I thought Twitter was only for those who have webpages who when out of pocket could still stay in contact with their readers. But it has turned into so much more than that. One of the most popular features is you can text in your tweets. Also if you paste in an URL it turns it into a tinyurl so that you don’t overrun your 140 character limit.
And Fillyjonk . . the work around is you post two or three tweets to get everything in there. Makes perfect sense to anyone who uses Twitter :)
You also learn how to say things in less than 140 characters.
sya »
17 February 2009 · 8:11 pm
I’m sort of antisocial–so all of this would be pointless since I don’t really want to find other people and I don’t want other people to find me. I don’t have time for twitter, although admittedly it would be useful for something like “Help! I’m stuck in the elevator” or “ARG! Newest undergrad spilled four gallons of MTBE on the 3rd floor”–that is, if I could get more than zero people following my feed.