Twitter Redux

I posted on the subject of Twitter a few months ago, when I was testing the waters of this technology, both for my comic and for my personal life. By now, I've figured out pretty much what I like and don't like about tweeting.

First of all, it's just not a big deal. I think it's pretty funny to see Twitter hyped on the news as the next cutting edge communications medium that all the hip and tech-savvy kids are into. Really, Twitter is a super simple technology, seemingly used by mostly businesses and older people, that allows you to broadcast your short message through a site that is all too often down.

I don't find it useful for my personal life; Facebook gives me a similar broadcast outlet with the benefit of allowing friends to comment on my posts. Additionally, on Facebook I don't have to scroll through reams of out-of-context conversations such as:

sometwitteruser: I knew it! RT @othertwitteruser It's all my fault! The apocalypse is here. (47 minutes ago from web)

What?

Also I learned from day one that most of the people who followed me were basically shills for pornography sites, a common Twitter user experience I chronicled through Valdosta.

I do think it makes for a useful tool for promoting your product or service, since these types of posts aren't necessarily conversational and can be 140 characters or less without seeming artificially short. For this reason, while I've deactivated my personal account, I've retained @theremonstrance. So far I've mostly used it to announce new comic postings, but I do enjoy being able to follow other, more entertaining comic artists. I mostly see my Twitter feed through the iGoogle TwitterGadget; I rarely go to the actual Twitter site. When I had two Twitter accounts, I used the excellent and simple Matt web application to make posts.

In short, I would definitely recommend Twitter for anyone who wants to promote something (comic, band, dog walking business); but for personal stuff, I'd prefer almost anything else (e.g. Google Buzz) that allows for commenting, unlimited message size, and isn't always down.

Get Yer Tweets Here

I haven't done anything nerdy to shake up the site lately, so I decided to add the latest tweets from my webcomic twitter feed to the front page. I used the very nice python-twitter library, which made accessing the Twitter API a breeze for me in my favorite scripting language.

I'm not a huge Twitter user, but I do post comic updates and short news bits, as well as any cool comic-related links I come across. If you want to see a pretty comprehensive list of other webcomic authors to follow - some of whom post spectacularly funny tweets - check out The Webcomic List's Authors on Twitter directory.

My (Short So Far) Experience with Twitter

As a computer professional I try to keep myself curious about new technology, even technology that I don't at first appreciate or understand. A perfect case in point is Twitter. I read about how microblogging was changing media paradigms and how everyone was integrating Twitter into their communications arsenal, from journalists to celebrities to special-interest websites.

To an extent, I understood the advantages of broadcasting short pieces of information; for example I think it's great fun to see what your friends are doing on Facebook. But I never quite got why there was so much hype, nor was I convinced that Twitter was much more than a fad. It seemed to be a lazy way to exacerbate our society's already epidemic attention deficit disorder, as well as an unnecessary tool for further increasing the noise-to-information ratio on the Internet.

But like a good curiousity seeker, I decided to bite the bullet and give Twitter a try. I signed up for an account a few weeks ago and have been tweeting pretty moderately since. Not on my phone - that would drive me crazy - but just in quiet moments in front of the computer. I found that Twitter is a great medium for broadcasting rhetorical questions and observations, as well as posting interesting links and special interest news, that you might never feel was appropriate for an entire blog post or for sharing with all your friends and family on Facebook. It's kind of a low-barrier outlet in which to throw your musings and stream of consciousness thoughts.

Most people who don't like Twitter, including myself just months ago, argue that they have no interest in reading inanities, such as what someone "had for breakfast" this morning. I think that may be a misconception - what I have found is that good Twitterers don't usually post mundane breakfast menus (although I am not proud that I once tweeted on flossing my teeth, which promptly led to my wife dropping me from her follow list). When you tweet, you tend to post your thoughts on things of interest to you - and presumably to your followers.

To that end I decided to start focusing more on The Remonstrance in my tweets, which you are welcome to follow, though I will continue to post whatever of my interests (music, computer programming, politics, sports) comes into my head. It may be that I will eventually lose interest and decide that Twitter is not for me. Or maybe something better will come along and leave Twitter in that same shadowy and moribund realm shared by MySpace and (shudder) Friendster. But for now I like that I found something positive about a technology that I used to think epitomized frivolous technological douchebaggery. Remember: cynism is fun, but an open mind will ultimately make you much happier and wiser.

UPDATE 8/16/2009: I have since created a separate feed for The Remonstrance, to allow for a tighter focus on things related to the comic. You can follow it at http://twitter.com/theremonstrance.