Twitter is the hot new thing. Bigger growth than Facebook, they say. And as a seasoned search marketer, I’m supposed to love it. But I don’t. And I’ll tell you why. There are five things about Twitter that irritate me to no end:
- I hate hash tags. There, I said it. I don’t use them unless I’m forced to, and I find the entire idea of them “so 1999.” The early adopters of Twitter are search geeks; why would any of us buy into a system so archaic that you have to tag your posts to effectively search on them? “Twitter, meet Google. Google, this is Twitter. Can you please help with their search technology?”
- Usability on Twitter sucks. It’s one of the worst laid-out systems anywhere. From the navigation (hello, the search link is in the footer!) to the number of times in a day I get the “Too Many Tweets!” error, Twitter needs some serious help building a user-friendly site and infrastructure.
- I find it infinitely frustrating that I can’t follow a conversation on Twitter. I tried to twit (?) with a friend the other day about a new restaurant I was visiting. But because our replies didn’t go in the order of our other tweets and there was time in between them, it was nearly impossible to follow the conversation.
- Twitter sucks my day away. I feel constantly compelled to go back to TweetDeck and see what people are saying – see #3. It’s a worse addiction than Facebook and e-mail combined, and has directly contributed to my lack of productivity lately. If only there was this thing where I could… what’s the word… search? Especially for specific conversations instead of individual tweets.
- No one wants to admit how much they like Twitter. Almost everyone I know is on Twitter, but when asked, “what’s the big deal about Twitter?” they respond with an evasive, indifferent answer. I’ve never seen such a complete lack of buy-in for a tool so popular.
Maybe it’s because people actually like Twitter. I have to admit, I find the idea of tapping into conversations that are not part of the general blogosphere so powerful that it sometimes keeps me up at night. Ok, not really, but I do think it’s pretty exciting that people like me – who have plenty of opinions but were never sufficiently motivated to start a blog of their own (yeah, that’s it, motivation, not laziness) – can now tell the world what they think. Or at least their 10,000 “friends.”
So what DO I like about Twitter? Five things:
- I can categorize people into groups. Now that I’ve installed Tweetdeck, I have the group of friends that I want to meet for a drink and the group of industry pundits who are posting articles. And then I have everyone else… hmm, #6 on the things I don’t like.
- Twitter has basically replaced my RSS reader. Now if anything is actually important enough for me to spend the time to read, I see people tweeting about it.
- Supposedly, there is this search thing (see #1 on the don’t like list) where I can see what other people are tweeting about. You know, in case I wanted to check up on my Clients’ reputation. When there’s actual technology driving this, we’re talking about some powerful data.
- I can use applications (like Twitterberry) to get my tweets right on my phone. Not so useful for following others, but great for updating my own status and receiving replies and direct messages. Mark my words, this will replace texting as we know it today.
- I can use Twitter and the buzz around it to my advantage. You better believe I’m tweeting that I wrote this blog post! Marketing 101.
So the next time someone asks you what you think of Twitter, tell them the truth. It’s like the 3rd movie in The Matrix trilogy. Brilliant concept, but somehow just didn’t reach its full potential. The good news is that, unlike a movie, Twitter has more than 3 hours to unfold. But in Twitter-time, 3 hours is over 1000 tweets, so they better get started.
Twitter, tweet, twitterberry . . . obviously I am a complete twit. I think being able to “converse” all the time with everyone is the easiest way to become the rudest person in the world and so I won’t be doing it. I have actually walked away from people (”friends”) who were so busy twitting (?) they couldn’t carry on a decent conversation. Enough already!! (Do I sound like a curmudgeon yet?) Donna
I hate twitter because I don’t see any need for it, except to spread rumors to those who ordinarily wouldn’t listen to me.
I still have not found the need to join Twitter….. Great article.
Very nice article, and you even managed to tie in the Matrix
You can add Twitter to the list of social media that made me realize that I got old — LiveJounal => MySpace => FaceBook => Twitter — never excited me. I just don’t “get” the appeal. It all seems like so much desperate exhibitionist egotism. Blogging is the last huge internet trend in which I saw any merit.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some damn kids who need to be told to get off of my lawn.
Mike,
You had me laughing at “hashtags are so 1999″…. I’m imaging Prince… Tom Jones… ok, I’ll stop.
Truly great piece… I’m sure to tweet this out.
~Li
Li, thanks for the comment and for getting the word out!
Thanks for your comments, everyone. I read an article yesterday that said only about 3% of the Internet population is actively using Twitter. That’s not very many people yet. I can see from the comments here that many people still don’t get the appeal. So let’s hear from some die-hard fans – prove me wrong about #5 above and tell us why you love Twitter!
I love your observations — especially #2 and #3 under Twitter peeves. I’ve got my fingers crossed for better engagement in the future without resorting to third-party apps.
I think Twitter is great (there I’ve said it!). Like most people who seem to be posting here, I really didn’t get what Twitter is all about when I started using it. After all, who cares what I’m doing and what I’m seeing. Fact is, not too many people give a hoot…and thats okay. Thing is, I care. I don’t really care what random people who follow me are doing, however I do care what the Danny Sullivan’s and Matt Cutts’ of this world are reading. Consdering these are people I can learn a lot from, by following them I find out faster who the authorities in the industry are and what they are saying.
I still haven’t explained why I tweet though….I tweet because sometimes it is nice to give something back. If those few who follow me find value in the stuff I tweet about than I guess I’m doing my part in the whole ecology of the world wide web.
Follow me on Twitter @JeffreyRomano if you like. You might find a few good resources
from my tweets.
Cheers
It’s been a love/hate relationship for me. Before joining, I was very skeptical about its value and use in an overcrowded life. Watching the in-box fill with blog posts and RSS feeds, I can get overloaded and not get to the good stuff. Guilt ensues, as I fear I am missing out and not keeping up…
Enter Twitter – I can follow my favorite gurus and scan their updates for the latest cool news/tips/insights. I don’t have to wait for someone to write an entire article or post about it and have that reach me. I can scan and pick and choose.
But it quickly became a challenge to filter out the noise even with Tweetdeck, and it’s hard to follow a conversation you care about. So I’m back on the fence, waiting for future improvements…
Thanks so much for all the comments! I really appreciate everyone’s thoughts and feedback. It’s great to hear from some people who like Twitter. If you guys want to follow the blog, we’re @keyworddriven, or you can follow me directly @jennyhalasz
OK, Jenny, you know I put the cur in curmudgeon, but one constant in all online activity from my perspective is the near universal creepage of misinformation into most “conversation”. With the death of print media and editorial staffs along with them, I worry about the web as a source of information, especially for the unsophisticated. We have Phd’s, MD’s, CPA’s, CFP’s, etc. We probably need a new profession, call it Certified Online Guru, who really really knows what he or she is talking about. Great article, even though I didnt understand a word of it. Dad
Dad (and yes, this is my dad who commented), Good observations, and I’d say you understand a fair amount more than you’re giving yourself credit for. You’ve hit on one of our industry’s greatest challenges. As information becomes more and more accessible, how do you control the flow and accuracy of it? The recent panic over swine flu is a perfect example. Between the twittering, the emailing, the news media, and all the other sources available, misinformation was rampant. Even Google’s swine flu tracker was tricked by the sheer quantity of searches on swine flu and related symptoms, making it seem that it had spread much farther and faster than it actually did. So if you can’t trust the news media, the viral community, or even Google, who can you trust? What if there was a person, or persons who you could follow (on Twitter) for issues like this? Dr. Sanjay Gupta at CNN for example has his own Twitter account. I’d certainly trust his opinion over “that guy I met once at a conference”. Maybe that’s the next step – a catalog of highly trusted, reputable minds on specific topics. I could make them a separate group in TweetDeck.