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I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

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Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#111

Post by mlindner »

meowface wrote: post #34
fluidcruft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that the algorithmic feed just wants to firehose 99.9% sensationalist trending muck I don't want from people and topics I don't want to follow or read about on twitter.

For me the absolute worst of the worst is the "More Tweets" list under certain tweets. It's basically designed to be the most sensationalist, polarizing, "hot take"ist bullshit imaginable. I'm not sure I've ever read a single thing worth reading in that section. A rather meta example: scroll down to the "More Tweets" section under this recent Elon Musk tweet - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1525738556102164480 I…

I think this is a difference between the desktop and web experience because I don't see any "more tweets" section. If I scroll, I just get autoloading of more replies to the tweet.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#112

Post by spike021 »

zaphar wrote: post #7

I've been using Twitter since it was invite only. I'm not a Twitter personality, I don't have impressive follow counts or viral tweets. I do tweet but mostly only so I can interact with my feed. I've left every other social network. No longer on Facebook. No interest in Instagram or TikTok. But Twitter I've continued to get value from. This is entirely because I'm able to curate my feed. My rules for twitter engageme…

This process is basically what I’ve done for years. I don’t use tweetdeck though, I just manually curate my lists in twitter's own UI. Mostly works. Some stuff slips through the cracks but my expectations are just set such that nothing will ever be perfect.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#113

Post by nemothekid »

recursive wrote: post #63
notacoward wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of people complaining about Twitter only experience it through the twitter.com web interface. I'd hate it too if that was my only experience of it. Using Tweetdeck and/or just about any mobile client is worlds better. You don't get so much random dreck, which makes it much easier to see and engage with people you actually know or like. As far as I can tell, using any social-media site other than wit…

If that's really the only way to make twitter good, then it seems like a reasonable complaint that twitter is not that way. If twitter can't be bothered to make their own product tolerable, I don't feel any compulsion to do it for them. I say this as someone who briefly attempted to dabble in twitter on a few occasions. I have an account. I've tweeted a few times. I now check it probably a few times a year.

Tweetdeck isn't anymore accessible than Twitter; It's for powerusers. It's better than vanilla twitter the same way an F1 car is better than a Toyota Camry. If you can't grok a Camry, then jumping into an F1 isn't going to make your experience better.

Twitter's strength and "problem" (to me), is that its just a firehose of senseless data and you have to manually figure out what you want. I only started enjoying Twitter, by accident, when in college I blacklisted Facebook, Instagram and Reddit on my computer. That said, over the years I've come to prefer it's arguably web-1.0 style of discovery to the curated feeds of today.

I don't think Twitter needs the instant gratification hooks that other platforms have. Sometimes you login, and there's nothing going on.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#116

Post by PKop »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #75
zaphar wrote: post #7

I've been using Twitter since it was invite only. I'm not a Twitter personality, I don't have impressive follow counts or viral tweets. I do tweet but mostly only so I can interact with my feed. I've left every other social network. No longer on Facebook. No interest in Instagram or TikTok. But Twitter I've continued to get value from. This is entirely because I'm able to curate my feed. My rules for twitter engageme…

I settled on a similar approach. I used to liberally follow all sorts of accounts that seemed even remotely relevant, but signal to noise was abysmal and there was way too much drama. Several times I was on the verge of quitting, even though Twitter was quite useful for promoting my own work and that of my students. But recently I decided to try a new approach and systematically unfollowed a lot of accounts. Now I st…

I don't understand the anonymous accounts rule. Some of the most interesting and insightful people on Twitter are anonymous. And we could say the same about Hacker News. Do you think this website would be better if we all had to use our real names?

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#117

Post by PKop »

kstenerud wrote: post #10

I still don't get it. Nothing in this article makes sense to me, either. Not to denigrate the author - I'm sure what he posted makes a ton of sense, just not to me. I made a twitter account shortly after it first started, made a few tweets, and then it languished and I think it's probably long deleted by now. Last year my wife made me another one because "you need it to promote your OSS stuff". Okay so I made a few t…

It's a resource to learn and follow smart and interesting people who know a lot about different subjects you're interested in (lists are good for this purpose). You tweeting is not necessary at all to get value out of twitter.

I've learned a ton about economics, geopolitics, history, Bitcoin, finance, health and nutrition and software development on Twitter (have lists for some of these, while much is just in my main feed).

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#118

Post by affectsk »

time_to_smile wrote: post #73
jklinger410 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I did some analysis on a pretty large number of domains and found that Twitter had virtually no impact on traffic. There were brands that had a large twitter following, but in nearly every case I could find this was because a popular brand happened to have an audience that also was active on Twitter, not because Twitter activity helped to grow their brand. How did you perform this research?

Many years ago at a small private company that had access to thousands of Google analytics accounts ranging from recognizable name brands to people just trying to get started. You could actively watch small brands grow big over history and in all cases it was clear that twitter success (in terms of traffic from twitter and follower count) trailed brand development. This was also not universally true of all social med…

Yeah, I wouldn't rely on it as a primary marketing channel in most cases, especially if I had to build it from the ground up.

Conflating "feels good" with "this is working" is right on point, too.

I'm sure it works better as a marketing channel for specific niches, though (just like Instagram works best for certain types of brands).

Other than that, it's just a good place for all kinds of organic engagement in general if that's where your audience is. Not necessarily marketing.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#119

Post by code_duck »

mlindner wrote: post #111
meowface wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the absolute worst of the worst is the "More Tweets" list under certain tweets. It's basically designed to be the most sensationalist, polarizing, "hot take"ist bullshit imaginable. I'm not sure I've ever read a single thing worth reading in that section. A rather meta example: scroll down to the "More Tweets" section under this recent Elon Musk tweet - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1525738556102164480 I…

I think this is a difference between the desktop and web experience because I don't see any "more tweets" section. If I scroll, I just get autoloading of more replies to the tweet.

Not sure whether you’re on desktop or mobile, but I only get “More Tweets” on the mobile website if I’m not signed in. Otherwise it’s as you describe, only replies.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#120

Post by affectsk »

russellbeattie wrote: post #74

Twitter is about writing a quick thought to get it out of your system and hoping some of your followers actually sees it, which statistically, they won't. I wrote an analysis 12 years ago about it (below). With the passage of time it's clear that without AI algorithms, Twitter (and other social networks) would be totally useless, instead of mostly useless, as it is today. I didn't get how good AI was going to get bac…

Enjoyed the article!

Phased attention and transient information is exactly how I see Twitter myself. Trying to stay on top of everything is out of question.

I think of Twitter as an ongoing party that I can drop by, see what's up, chat with a few friends, make a few new friends, have a little fun, move on until next time.

This approach only makes sense when you have a "community" of people on Twitter that you "belong" to. That's the part I was missing back when I tried it originally.

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