Twitter & facebook status updates = YELLING at a crowd?
Is it just me, or does twittering what you are doing right NOW or updating your facebook status kind of like yelling at a room full of everybody you know? Isn’t it kind of like sending an email in all caps?
Ok - so maybe yelling may be a bit of an overstatement, but wouldn’t it be super if you could segment your tweats or facebook status updates based on audience?
I would love the ability to go from a 1 to many broadcast of what i’m doing right now to a 1 to a few broadcast segmented by topic, group of friends, family, or co-workers.
For example, I’m sure my marketing friends don’t really care how much snow I skied in this past weekend, and likewise my ski friends really don’t care about QR codes. When I think about it, only my mother (and maybe my girlfriend) really care or want to know what I’m doing RIGHT now….
Is there a way to do this already? Let me know.
5 comments
I cant help but think this is about me. First let me say, I’m twittering b/c of you ? but I’m twittering too much ‘cause I’m bored at work ?
In response to your post, I actually don’t agree, in fact I would go so far as to say I think the exact opposite. Twitter is subfont italic. A subtle wave at the people who may, or may not be watching. (again, possibly b/c I am bored at work).
The Video you posted a couple posts ago really made sense to me. Micro blogging is the ultimate supervised invasion into your privacy. I love watching the facebook application on netvibes refresh itself as my “friends” keep me updated on what they are doing. I use “friends” in parenthesize because some of these people I haven’t talked to in years.
I definitely get what you are saying, but I think that to break up microblog like that would be against the spirit of exercise. Which (in my opinion) isn’t to announce to the world what you are doing, but instead, is more of an introspective acknowledgment of your whereabouts… which the world gets to read.
I would also add, reading a micro blog is a passive activity. I don’t care what you are doing, when I am eye ball deep into a project that was due last week… but I am mildly weirded out to say, on a normal day, I AM interested to hear you had another 8” of fresh powder, or that you just figured out another cool thing the iphone can do (actually not the last thing) ?
have i missed the point on micro blogs, or are you seeing it from a different (not bored at work) perspective?
– have you checked the new privacy features in facebook. It would seem you can at least limit who reads your status update. Not a perfect solution, but…
David - thanks for the input.
You’ve raised some great points and i don’t disagree with them - well at least in terms of what Twitter should / could be.
My point was more that since i have a diverse network, wouldn’t it be great to be able to have a few lifestreams for them.
My concern would be that if i twitter about a mobile conference all week, my ski friends may stop “following” me on twitter because my contribution to the ski conversation is irrelevant etc…
For the record, the post wasn’t specifically targeted at you. You are one of the few friends who may actually find my ski and marketing tweets equally interesting
BTW, i love the new privacy features on facebook. They don’t go far enough… but it’s a start
twitter dee, twitter dumb? Hmm, sometims I think the concept of twittering is dumb, but aside from being fun to follow celebrities, it can be really practical.
But what if you could target your twitters to individual groups of people?
I thought about this in terms of what I do. I work in construction (no not as one of those fraggle rock guys, but as an engineer) and I just thought that it would be great if the twitters go to certain people in the company. For instance, from your mobile phone to text what job site you have just arrived at or are leaving. Not only would this allow the person you are visiting next to prepare for your arrival, but it would also let people know how close you are to their job site in case they are in trouble.
And in terms of any delivery system, if you could twitter what your location is it would allow people to prepare for your arrival. It further improves the ‘Just In Time’ process. Add to that a little GPS and you can track if an employee/supplier is accurate with their twitter update.
Perhaps not traditional uses of twittering, but it targets large audiences with one small message.
I do like twittering/updating my facebook status page, as well as reading other people’s status’ as well…. so I guess I DON’T really sit on the side of the fence that says ‘twitter dumb’
Sasha, a very scary prospect, but considering how easily twitter integrated with facebook and netvibes, I cant see any reason why we wouldn’t (or couldn’t) be integrating a GPS component…
“ALERT boss approaches from the south”
Then we really need Phil’s “Multi stream” solution
Twittering and facebook updates somehow remind me of the myspacing of online communities.
Although I do have a Twitter accound I’ve never used it - I don’t understand what the fuss is all about!
Leave a Comment