I still don't get why "normals" tweet. Who are you tweeting to? Do you honestly know people who want to hear your quips about Madonna? Twitter is good for following public figures and brands, but I just don't see why any of my peers want to tweet to anyone as if they really have a following of more than 5 people that actually want to read that.
Am I off here?
Yes.
I am very active on twitter (@jakedeltoro) and I tweet regularly. I follow very few 'celebrities', mostly just people who I know through online gaming communities. I tweet a lot and have 180ish followers, there is quite a lot of conversation that goes on between the people I follow and the people who follow me. It is almost like a forum, except it is instantaneous as I get notifications on my phone.
I see where you are coming from but if used right it can be a great communication tool.
1- On Her Majesty's Secret Service 2- Casino Royale 3- Licence To Kill 4- Goldeneye 5- From Russia With Love
I still don't get why "normals" tweet. Who are you tweeting to? Do you honestly know people who want to hear your quips about Madonna? Twitter is good for following public figures and brands, but I just don't see why any of my peers want to tweet to anyone as if they really have a following of more than 5 people that actually want to read that.
Am I off here?
Yes.
I am very active on twitter (@jakedeltoro) and I tweet regularly. I follow very few 'celebrities', mostly just people who I know through online gaming communities. I tweet a lot and have 180ish followers, there is quite a lot of conversation that goes on between the people I follow and the people who follow me. It is almost like a forum, except it is instantaneous as I get notifications on my phone.
I see where you are coming from but if used right it can be a great communication tool.
But you have followers. The average person I see on there has less than 20, which makes it near pointless to tweet for them, I would think.
Tweeting to a celebrity or following the high profile accounts makes sense to me, but a plain tweet directed to a normal person's followers seems very uneventful for most people. You are an exception in my experience. My peers' twitter accounts all have a handful of followers and they talk about how they like tweeting, but many of them seem to get responded to on Facebook accounts regularly for status updates, and that is where most of their friends seem to be for responding.
For most people, there is just too little exposure for it to be eventful or exciting enough for me to pay attention like we're all celebrities with something buzz worthy to say. I just don't see the excitement when a friend of mine on Facebook says that they are all excited about their new twitter account. Nothing motivates me to follow their average joe tweets.
I'll admit, I'm not much of a people person, so maybe that is why I just don't get why a group of friends would use a twitter account to talk in addition to Facebook and texting.
I still don't get why "normals" tweet. Who are you tweeting to? Do you honestly know people who want to hear your quips about Madonna? Twitter is good for following public figures and brands, but I just don't see why any of my peers want to tweet to anyone as if they really have a following of more than 5 people that actually want to read that.
Am I off here?
No, not at all.
I don't get twitter. I thought it was that bit between a ladies furry front bum and her poo chute.
The whole idea of this 'twitter' thing eludes me. "walked into a lamppost today LOL", "bought the wrong bread today WHY GOD?!!!" etc etc
What I really want to know is who writes this crap, and who reads it? Jesus, pick up the phone and call your mates, go round and see them, have a beer, socialise with real people, I honestly think its far more enjoyable than posting irrelevant meaningless cack to complete stalking strangers.
t I really want to know is who writes this crap, and who reads it? Jesus, pick up the phone and call your mates, go round and see them, have a beer, socialise with real people
You could level that very same argument at people who use a James Bond forum to talk to people on the internet.
You seem to suggest that using Twitter and socialising in the rel world are mutually exclusive. Your example is exactly the kind of stereotype that people who 'don't get it' always seem to use. The fact is that, Twitter is what you make of it and as I said above, if it's used right it is a great communication tool. The people I talk to on there are people I've never met but share similar interests to.
1- On Her Majesty's Secret Service 2- Casino Royale 3- Licence To Kill 4- Goldeneye 5- From Russia With Love
However, in my experience I am the norm. In fact a lot of the people in my circle of friends on Twitter have far more followers than me but my numbers creep up quite regularly.
What I don't get about Twitter are the people who follow celebrities just to launch personal attacks on them, I see it quite regularly particularly with footballers in Britain. It's quite pathetic really.
1- On Her Majesty's Secret Service 2- Casino Royale 3- Licence To Kill 4- Goldeneye 5- From Russia With Love
However, in my experience I am the norm. In fact a lot of the people in my circle of friends on Twitter have far more followers than me but my numbers creep up quite regularly.
What I don't get about Twitter are the people who follow celebrities just to launch personal attacks on them, I see it quite regularly particularly with footballers in Britain. It's quite pathetic really.
Well, that is why I said 'in my experience.' I know I have not actually researched across twitter and so I may be wrong about if that is the true norm, but we all certainly will have a different perspective.
And with this forum, we commit to discussing a common interest with a fairly specific demographic. There is little chance of brushing across a horde of Kim Kardashian fans here, but on twitter, they are considered queens of the web. Twitter just has so much random stuff going on that without organizing your friends and followers, you are very likely to end up tweeting to people who don't matter one bit and don't have nearly as large of common interests as you share in a dedicated forum.
I like talking to this 25+ (mostly) male age demographic who are all fans enough of Bond to make and account here and visit regularly. I have no such guarantee on twitter, and instead find it to be a collection of some of the most unimportant things I have ever read when I look at the average twitter account, in my experience.
Twitter just has so much random stuff going on that without organizing your friends and followers, you are very likely to end up tweeting to people who don't matter one bit and don't have nearly as large of common interests as you share in a dedicated forum
Well if you have no followers then you end up tweeting to no-one
I guess that's where I'm fortunate, I see the best of Twitter because the people I follow all share similar interests to me so I don't see any of the stupid pointless stuff.
1- On Her Majesty's Secret Service 2- Casino Royale 3- Licence To Kill 4- Goldeneye 5- From Russia With Love
Twitter's great. Absolutely the best way to keep up with current events, news stories, revolutions, celebrity scandals, sporting events, & Paris Hilton.
Twitter's great. Absolutely the best way to keep up with current events, news stories, revolutions, celebrity scandals, sporting events, & Paris Hilton.
I used to use this thing called 'ceefax' )
These days google news, or good old aunty keeps me informed. Ok, they don't tell me what Todd mcfudgenudge had for breakfast, or that he put orange juice on his cornflakes and then dropped his toast in the dog's basket ROFL!!!!!! LOLLZZZ!!!!!......
But I don't consider that a major loss tbh.
Ceefax is about to close (October 2012) and I will have some fond memories. I found it especially useful in the days before Sky Sports really took off. Used it regularly to keep up to date with live sport, results etc. Always found it useful for the tv schedules and news even though the news wasn't always up to date.
Moore Not Less 4371 posts (2002 - 2007) Moore Than (2012 - 2016)
Ceefax is about to close (October 2012) and I will have some fond memories. I found it especially useful in the days before Sky Sports really took off. Used it regularly to keep up to date with live sport, results etc. Always found it useful for the tv schedules and news even though the news wasn't always up to date.
Ceefax is about to close (October 2012) and I will have some fond memories. I found it especially useful in the days before Sky Sports really took off. Used it regularly to keep up to date with live sport, results etc. Always found it useful for the tv schedules and news even though the news wasn't always up to date.
I thought ceefax went out with analogue?
The analogue signal has not yet been swiched off in my area so I can still (and do on occasion) choose to watch tv the old fashioned way (Ceefax included).
Moore Not Less 4371 posts (2002 - 2007) Moore Than (2012 - 2016)
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,867MI6 Agent
I myself quite like Twitter, but you do have to watch out for hackers sending you links from "friends". :v
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
IM with Minigeff here, i watch my kids answer their twitter
and Sue says to Holly oh this is me eating a bag of crisps
this is me outside the pound store WHO GIVE A F***
By the way, did I tell you, I was "Mad"?
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,867MI6 Agent
IM with Minigeff here, i watch my kids answer their twitter
and Sue says to Holly oh this is me eating a bag of crisps
this is me outside the pound store WHO GIVE A F***
You can follow me on Twitter @Dragonpol, if you're interested in more intellectual stuff, always shaken. I find Twiiter a great resource if used properly.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I've tried a few more times since I last posted in this thread to work with twitter as a social resources, and as a news resource. I don't think it holds much substance and value in either category. It is a mix of useless commentary from unimportant people.
As for the news sources, I think there are far better ways to see the best headlines, articles, and editorials. It is a messy and mixed up way to get news links.
I don't care for Twitter, or the fact that your shoelace broke on your way to get an iced coffee. Or that you think Barbara Walters is snappy in her reports, but catty on The View. Or that you, too, saw that UFO Russell Crowe saw.
Shhhh.
FelixLeiter ♀Staffordshire or a pubPosts: 1,286MI6 Agent
I have used Twitter for over four years now and how I use it has certainly changed. I have also seen how it changed from being something that only a minority used, to something that a large number of people access on a daily basis. All these people use it in different ways.
I originally used it to follow a few celebrities. At the time Stephen Fry was filming a documentary series about endangered animals and he posted regularly about this, which I found fascinating. I mainly found it a good resource for finding out behind the scenes info on programmes.
This eventually changed and I found that I mainly followed Doctor Who crew members - producers, directors, composer. By seeing who replied to them, or also followed them, I was able to follow other fans and interact with them, much as I do here with Bond. I had never had this before with Doctor Who and for the first time was able to find out different opinions about episodes, continuity, characters etc.
I play rugby and so started following some professional players and other fans.
I realised that I had gradually become friends with these people and so cared about their lives. Through them I began to follow other people who also had similar interests to me, be it music, tv, film, literature, humour. We discuss these, live tweet during tv shows, slag off news stories. There has become a lot to share.
Building up followers? People make it sound so difficult but it isn't. You message other people about a post you were interested in. You have conversations. You follow them and if they have also enjoyed the conversation and your tweets, they might follow you. It happens fairly easily. For the most part, how many people follow you depends on how many you speak to.
However, I know that this is not how everyone uses it.
There are many who have just migrated from Facebook. They DO tweet mindless boring crap and post ambiguous updates designed to provoke a sympathetic response. There are also those who only follow their real life friends and use Twitter as one big meeting place for them all. Their followers are their friends from real life and rarely anyone they only know online.
Some do just follow for celebrities or news and sport. I have a friend who is a passionate Labour supporter and Birmingham City fan so this is all he uses it for. This works for him whilst I would never want that much arguing about politics.
Then there are the fans. These range in age mostly from 11-16 and are almost all girls. They are the One Directioners and Beliebers. In my opinion they have to some extent poisoned Twitter. The 'trends' list, which lists the most talked about topics, has for some time become dominated by slogans they pass round. It used to be a good way of seeing the most talked about news stories. It might not be the first item on the news, but it could be the story that Twitter cared about most. I am a bit sad this is no more. There are also millions of them. Literally. Someone subtracted the number of 'bots' (automatic computer controlled accounts) from Harry Styles' followers and it still left him with 17 million people. They have bullied people who have criticised their idols and are incredibly obsessive. It puts to pale anything I have ever seen on this forum!
As well as this, there are trolls. It might be celebrities or real people but they provoke only for their own amusement and the annoyance of everyone else. Best blocked and ignored IMO.
I have experienced births (from both mother and fathers), weddings (straight and gay), deaths (dogs, cats, grandads, parents), divorces and depression. I speak to people I never would in real life, whether because of our age difference, being in different countries, or our real life social circles. There are definitely people on there whom I consider friends and tweet to most days. There are others whom I interact with only occasionally. There are those who brighten my day, make me laugh or make me think and they have never known it.
Twitter is not for everyone, but you have to put the effort in, especially at the start, and how you use it is up to you.
P.S. Best celebrity response was Jonathan Ross who after I told him I loved the white jacket he wore in a picture he had posted, informed me he could not wear it on TV as it flared up on camera.
I have also had several responses from the writer Anthony Horowitz, several of which were brilliant, especially as he was a childhood idol of mine
Relax darling, I'm on top of the situation -{
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,867MI6 Agent
Thanks for posting. I'm not a big Twitter user really, but I seem to attract new followers somehow.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Comments
Yes.
I am very active on twitter (@jakedeltoro) and I tweet regularly. I follow very few 'celebrities', mostly just people who I know through online gaming communities. I tweet a lot and have 180ish followers, there is quite a lot of conversation that goes on between the people I follow and the people who follow me. It is almost like a forum, except it is instantaneous as I get notifications on my phone.
I see where you are coming from but if used right it can be a great communication tool.
But you have followers. The average person I see on there has less than 20, which makes it near pointless to tweet for them, I would think.
Tweeting to a celebrity or following the high profile accounts makes sense to me, but a plain tweet directed to a normal person's followers seems very uneventful for most people. You are an exception in my experience. My peers' twitter accounts all have a handful of followers and they talk about how they like tweeting, but many of them seem to get responded to on Facebook accounts regularly for status updates, and that is where most of their friends seem to be for responding.
For most people, there is just too little exposure for it to be eventful or exciting enough for me to pay attention like we're all celebrities with something buzz worthy to say. I just don't see the excitement when a friend of mine on Facebook says that they are all excited about their new twitter account. Nothing motivates me to follow their average joe tweets.
I'll admit, I'm not much of a people person, so maybe that is why I just don't get why a group of friends would use a twitter account to talk in addition to Facebook and texting.
No, not at all.
I don't get twitter. I thought it was that bit between a ladies furry front bum and her poo chute.
The whole idea of this 'twitter' thing eludes me. "walked into a lamppost today LOL", "bought the wrong bread today WHY GOD?!!!" etc etc
What I really want to know is who writes this crap, and who reads it? Jesus, pick up the phone and call your mates, go round and see them, have a beer, socialise with real people, I honestly think its far more enjoyable than posting irrelevant meaningless cack to complete stalking strangers.
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
www.cancerresearchuk.org
You could level that very same argument at people who use a James Bond forum to talk to people on the internet.
You seem to suggest that using Twitter and socialising in the rel world are mutually exclusive. Your example is exactly the kind of stereotype that people who 'don't get it' always seem to use. The fact is that, Twitter is what you make of it and as I said above, if it's used right it is a great communication tool. The people I talk to on there are people I've never met but share similar interests to.
I've put the important bit of that quote i bold
However, in my experience I am the norm. In fact a lot of the people in my circle of friends on Twitter have far more followers than me but my numbers creep up quite regularly.
What I don't get about Twitter are the people who follow celebrities just to launch personal attacks on them, I see it quite regularly particularly with footballers in Britain. It's quite pathetic really.
Indeed.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Well, that is why I said 'in my experience.' I know I have not actually researched across twitter and so I may be wrong about if that is the true norm, but we all certainly will have a different perspective.
And with this forum, we commit to discussing a common interest with a fairly specific demographic. There is little chance of brushing across a horde of Kim Kardashian fans here, but on twitter, they are considered queens of the web. Twitter just has so much random stuff going on that without organizing your friends and followers, you are very likely to end up tweeting to people who don't matter one bit and don't have nearly as large of common interests as you share in a dedicated forum.
I like talking to this 25+ (mostly) male age demographic who are all fans enough of Bond to make and account here and visit regularly. I have no such guarantee on twitter, and instead find it to be a collection of some of the most unimportant things I have ever read when I look at the average twitter account, in my experience.
Well if you have no followers then you end up tweeting to no-one
I guess that's where I'm fortunate, I see the best of Twitter because the people I follow all share similar interests to me so I don't see any of the stupid pointless stuff.
I used to use this thing called 'ceefax'
These days google news, or good old aunty keeps me informed. Ok, they don't tell me what Todd mcfudgenudge had for breakfast, or that he put orange juice on his cornflakes and then dropped his toast in the dog's basket ROFL!!!!!! LOLLZZZ!!!!!......
But I don't consider that a major loss tbh.
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
www.cancerresearchuk.org
I use them too. If I want to know what's happening twelve hours after it's happened.
Ceefax is about to close (October 2012) and I will have some fond memories. I found it especially useful in the days before Sky Sports really took off. Used it regularly to keep up to date with live sport, results etc. Always found it useful for the tv schedules and news even though the news wasn't always up to date.
I thought ceefax went out with analogue?
Vive le droit à la libre expression! Je suis Charlie!
www.helpforheroes.org.uk
www.cancerresearchuk.org
The analogue signal has not yet been swiched off in my area so I can still (and do on occasion) choose to watch tv the old fashioned way (Ceefax included).
and Sue says to Holly oh this is me eating a bag of crisps
this is me outside the pound store WHO GIVE A F***
You can follow me on Twitter @Dragonpol, if you're interested in more intellectual stuff, always shaken. I find Twiiter a great resource if used properly.
I've tried a few more times since I last posted in this thread to work with twitter as a social resources, and as a news resource. I don't think it holds much substance and value in either category. It is a mix of useless commentary from unimportant people.
As for the news sources, I think there are far better ways to see the best headlines, articles, and editorials. It is a messy and mixed up way to get news links.
I don't care for Twitter, or the fact that your shoelace broke on your way to get an iced coffee. Or that you think Barbara Walters is snappy in her reports, but catty on The View. Or that you, too, saw that UFO Russell Crowe saw.
Shhhh.
I originally used it to follow a few celebrities. At the time Stephen Fry was filming a documentary series about endangered animals and he posted regularly about this, which I found fascinating. I mainly found it a good resource for finding out behind the scenes info on programmes.
This eventually changed and I found that I mainly followed Doctor Who crew members - producers, directors, composer. By seeing who replied to them, or also followed them, I was able to follow other fans and interact with them, much as I do here with Bond. I had never had this before with Doctor Who and for the first time was able to find out different opinions about episodes, continuity, characters etc.
I play rugby and so started following some professional players and other fans.
I realised that I had gradually become friends with these people and so cared about their lives. Through them I began to follow other people who also had similar interests to me, be it music, tv, film, literature, humour. We discuss these, live tweet during tv shows, slag off news stories. There has become a lot to share.
Building up followers? People make it sound so difficult but it isn't. You message other people about a post you were interested in. You have conversations. You follow them and if they have also enjoyed the conversation and your tweets, they might follow you. It happens fairly easily. For the most part, how many people follow you depends on how many you speak to.
However, I know that this is not how everyone uses it.
There are many who have just migrated from Facebook. They DO tweet mindless boring crap and post ambiguous updates designed to provoke a sympathetic response. There are also those who only follow their real life friends and use Twitter as one big meeting place for them all. Their followers are their friends from real life and rarely anyone they only know online.
Some do just follow for celebrities or news and sport. I have a friend who is a passionate Labour supporter and Birmingham City fan so this is all he uses it for. This works for him whilst I would never want that much arguing about politics.
Then there are the fans. These range in age mostly from 11-16 and are almost all girls. They are the One Directioners and Beliebers. In my opinion they have to some extent poisoned Twitter. The 'trends' list, which lists the most talked about topics, has for some time become dominated by slogans they pass round. It used to be a good way of seeing the most talked about news stories. It might not be the first item on the news, but it could be the story that Twitter cared about most. I am a bit sad this is no more. There are also millions of them. Literally. Someone subtracted the number of 'bots' (automatic computer controlled accounts) from Harry Styles' followers and it still left him with 17 million people. They have bullied people who have criticised their idols and are incredibly obsessive. It puts to pale anything I have ever seen on this forum!
As well as this, there are trolls. It might be celebrities or real people but they provoke only for their own amusement and the annoyance of everyone else. Best blocked and ignored IMO.
I have experienced births (from both mother and fathers), weddings (straight and gay), deaths (dogs, cats, grandads, parents), divorces and depression. I speak to people I never would in real life, whether because of our age difference, being in different countries, or our real life social circles. There are definitely people on there whom I consider friends and tweet to most days. There are others whom I interact with only occasionally. There are those who brighten my day, make me laugh or make me think and they have never known it.
Twitter is not for everyone, but you have to put the effort in, especially at the start, and how you use it is up to you.
P.S. Best celebrity response was Jonathan Ross who after I told him I loved the white jacket he wore in a picture he had posted, informed me he could not wear it on TV as it flared up on camera.
I have also had several responses from the writer Anthony Horowitz, several of which were brilliant, especially as he was a childhood idol of mine