Social Media

Twitter: The Science, Not Art, of Distraction


Scott Karp points to the widely discussed problem with Twitter. There is a high noise to signal ratio. This is something that I've seen amplified this week with the avalanche of Twitter follows I've reciprocated this week since Adam urged me to publish the Twitter names of the Mashable editorial and writing staff this week. The problem of signal to noise is a bit less of a problem for me than for the non-blogger community, I imagine, as what goes on there is somewhat of a source of inspiration for new pieces, whereas for those focused on doing actual work as opposed to 24/7 analysis it could be accurately termed as distraction:




And so I decided that I needed to shut it off.

But then, if Twitter is used properly and in the various correct contexts, I imagine, it could work to your advantage. Still, more specialized tools and configurations of the tool should be explored and put to use. I'll try to outline some configurations and tool wish lists here to hopefully return the usefulness to the protocol.

Twitter for the Independent Journalist (or how I use it)
What your chosen niche of journalism should determine the type of folks you add to the service. As in all configurations, you should probably start with folks you know, and then move on to folks they know. I've found that right around sixty or so twitter-friends is where the service starts to become useful. Another thing you need to keep in mind, especially if you're new to the service, is to not think about it in terms of an IM tool, where every tweet deserves your full attention and possible response. This sort of hearkens back to the early days of Web, when you surf over the information, pulling out bits of information you find interesting, and responding occasionally.

Not only is surfing the tweets going to provide you with information, it will provide you with leads. As I've discovered by having a fair number of the so-called "A-list" of the blogosphere on my twitter list, there's a fair amount of trash-talking and frankness that goes on in Twitter. People tend to forget that what they way is non-retractable and available on the web as a record, and as a result will say things about fellow bloggers, fellow workmates or key rivals that they'd never actually say on their blog.

I'm not certain if the Valleywag staff are active users of Twitter, but they ought to be. Not only are their short form posts almost ideal for the Twitter format, but they'd definitely catch a lot of the folks they cover in their blog with either their pants down or foots firmly implanted in their mouths.

Another key feature (that I'm told works for most, just not for some) is the "track" feature. Pete and I found out about the San Jose earthquake via Twitter, and within seconds, we had all the key details gleaned from tracking the keywords "quake" and "earthquake." We wound up scooping the local news in the area by around a half hour, and CNN by three hours at Mashable.

evil-twitter.PNGIn terms of an upgrade for this sort of reporting, I'd love to see a tool developed that was designed for interfacing with the IM interface for Twitter that made individual tweets either flagable, tagable or drag and drop objects for insertion into a text document. One of the biggest challenges in tracking a flash in the pan event like an earthquake is how quickly the data flows by the screen. Two minutes after the actual earthquake, data was flying by so fast, I literally had a hard time reading it before it was gone from the screen (let alone had it copied and pasted).

Really though, the more into journalism and full-time punditry you are, the more twitter friends the better. You really can't go too overboard in this respect.

A Normal Person's Twitter Usage (or how you probably use it)
For non-journalists, though, there is definitely a point where there is too much, in terms of both volume and number of fellow Twitterers. I can't make the call for you as to what will be too much, but I'd imagine the number to be around 15 or at the high end 20. Chances are, if you do something besides write and talk for a living, you aren't going to want a large portion of your life devoted to maintaining your presence and constant conversation going on Twitter (or anywhere else for that matter).

Another benefit to keeping the number of Twitterers down to a respectable number is that you can actually use Twitter on your mobile phone without having to pay the upgrade fee to the unlimited SMS plan. Yes, I know that for some of the Silicon Valley crowd, it is unthinkable for someone to have a metered SMS plan, but there are quite a few people (myself included) that actually use a mobile phone primarily to talk with, and don't need it constantly buzzing with text information.

But if it's once in a while - maybe once or twice an hour tops - it can fall within the normal parameters of periodic text messaging. Chances are, with a limited number of twitter friends that will tend to be either business associates or family, that the conversations will be things you and everyone else are interested, and the noise to signal ratio will be manageable.

Used at that level, tertiary Twitter functionality begins to return, as well. Your Facebook mini-feed won't be completely filled with Twitter messages. Your Tumblr/Lifestream tool of choice will return a sense of balance so that your Flickr and voice posts won't be crowded off the bottom of the page each day.

Keep in mind that you shouldn't be social networking just for the sake of social networking. The idea behind Web 2.0 and social networking is that it is supposed to augment and facilitate that which you do in your daily life, not evolve into a time-sink. Therefore, you should feel free to make liberal use of the "off" command as well. If you're going into a movie or a meeting, tweet "off". When you've got open time to chat with your buddies and associates, just as you'd take off the DND button on your office line, turn your Twitter back on.

It doesn't have to be killed off from daily usage, as Scott Karp decided he'd have to do. Just configure it appropriately, and you'll likely find that it'll be the one social network forgot you joined.


Load Comments

What's New

What's Rising

What's Hot