Anyone use Twitter?

Hey guys, thanks for the info. Regarding spammers, LockAndLoad, you mention getting 2-4 a day, but do you get to receive messages/tweets from them in your feed if they're following you? that would be awful, even if twitter does get to them in a short period of time.

Thanks for the follows btw, added you both also. Expect many spanish non-sensical, politically related tweets and/or expropiation of women

You usually only get one or two messages from a spammer, you don't get flooded it's not all that bad. You also get less spammers if you don't talk much about some things.

do you get to receive messages/tweets from them in your feed if they're following you? that would be awful, even if twitter does get to them in a short period of time.

No, you don't see anything really in your feed unless you follow someone or if someone mentions you. If you use a tool like Tweetdeck (which is awesome as a Chrome app) you will see people reference your Twitter name in Tweets. You'll see something like this...

@mattperrin Turn your eyes to Safecopy backup for $50/yr for all your computers. Try out a free 3GB account;http://bit.ly/b1Ecz9
safecopy 1 week

So, what "safecopy" did was refer to my Twitter name in the tweet and I see it in my feed as a "mention". Well, that looks like a cool deal right? EH, Wrong! You never know where that Bit.ly link really goes to. It could be to a malware or other malicious site. It's cool to see your tweets or links get mentioned but that feedback loop can be easily exploited by bots. If you want to see this in action in a non-malicious way, try tweeting about the Legend of Zelda or Robocop. There's a Twitter bot out there that will reply back as Link's sprite Navi or as the "I'll buy that for a dollar" guy from Robocop.

Here's that part that's kind of cool though... I tweeted about Ferris Bueller's Day Off last summer and wondering what happened when the real Abe Froman arrived for lunch. Surprising, I got a tweet reply from Abe Froman himself. Sometimes random people / celebrities will out of the blue talk to you.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

You usually only get one or two messages from a spammer, you don't get flooded it's not all that bad. You also get less spammers if you don't talk much about some things.

I could venture a guess or two on some of those things, thanks for the tips DeVil.

LockAndLoad wrote:
do you get to receive messages/tweets from them in your feed if they're following you? that would be awful, even if twitter does get to them in a short period of time.

No, you don't see anything really in your feed unless you follow someone or if someone mentions you. If you use a tool like Tweetdeck (which is awesome as a Chrome app) you will see people reference your Twitter name in Tweets. You'll see something like this...

@mattperrin Turn your eyes to Safecopy backup for $50/yr for all your computers. Try out a free 3GB account;http://bit.ly/b1Ecz9
safecopy 1 week

So, what "safecopy" did was refer to my Twitter name in the tweet and I see it in my feed as a "mention". Well, that looks like a cool deal right? EH, Wrong! You never know where that Bit.ly link really goes to. It could be to a malware or other malicious site. It's cool to see your tweets or links get mentioned but that feedback loop can be easily exploited by bots. If you want to see this in action in a non-malicious way, try tweeting about the Legend of Zelda or Robocop. There's a Twitter bot out there that will reply back as Link's sprite Navi or as the "I'll buy that for a dollar" guy from Robocop.

But those mentions of you would appear on your followers' feeds right? god-darn viruses...

LockAndLoad wrote:

Here's that part that's kind of cool though... I tweeted about Ferris Bueller's Day Off last summer and wondering what happened when the real Abe Froman arrived for lunch. Surprising, I got a tweet reply from Abe Froman himself. Sometimes random people / celebrities will out of the blue talk to you.

My closest experience to that was replying to this relatively famous guy going on and on in facebook about how awesome el Che was, and that he admired his and Castro's struggle, just because he happened to be diving in Cuba with guided tours and sh*t like that. I politely told him he was speaking out of his ass and he "thumb-upped" my comment. :-\

So far I think I'm getting the hang of it, and it looks as if it will perform the way I hope it will. Thanks for the info!

Feeank wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

You usually only get one or two messages from a spammer, you don't get flooded it's not all that bad. You also get less spammers if you don't talk much about some things.

I could venture a guess or two on some of those things, thanks for the tips DeVil.

Exactly what you are thinking. Anything related to search engine optimisation, iPhones or Android.*

But those mentions of you would appear on your followers' feeds right? god-darn viruses...

No, only on your feed.

I find that Twitter is this weirdly passive thing that rewards patience. It's not about what you say, but about who you follow and it has a real organic aspect. It's not a social network for the self obsessed, but for the curious.

*That's not what you were thinking, right? :p

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Feeank wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

You usually only get one or two messages from a spammer, you don't get flooded it's not all that bad. You also get less spammers if you don't talk much about some things.

I could venture a guess or two on some of those things, thanks for the tips DeVil.

Exactly what you are thinking. Anything related to search engine optimisation, iPhones or Android.*

Exactly!

MrDeVil909 wrote:

*That's not what you were thinking, right? :p

Nope, not at all. I gotta get this predictability checked.

So I use twitter on my Android as well as on my laptop. With the laptop, I have a Sidebar gadget for Twitter that I'm quite happy with. The only problem is that when I tweet - which is pretty rare for now - it adds 'x minutes ago from Build A Gadget Sidebar Explorer' to the end. This is almost as long as most tweets! Does anyone know of a good sidebar gadget with a somewhat more diminutive name?
@Rallick_GWJ is my account, for those of you who want to collect the full Goodjer set.

I use Digsby for all my social networks and email. It's not a sidebar gadget because I don't use the sidebar. It's a useful little piece of software.

It's not a social network for the self obsessed, but for the curious.

This pretty much sums up Twitter for me. There's just something really interesting about reading little tidbits of random folks' daily life in different parts of the world.

Plus there are the photos of skeletonframes passed out with beer cases stuck on his head. Those are interesting too.

fleabagmatt wrote:

Plus there are the photos of skeletonframes passed out with beer cases stuck on his head. Those are interesting too. :D

skeletonframes is right up there as far as amusing Goodjers goes.

Tanglebones wrote:

Look for lists; if you want people following you, post your own twitter (I was able to find you with a search). Avggeek and KaterinLHC both have Goodjer lists, IIRC

I'm just happy someone mentioned my list ahead of Legion's

Feeank wrote:

about joining twitter...

What's your twitter handle? A search for Feeank doesn't turn up any results

Rallick wrote:

@Rallick_GWJ is my account, for those of you who want to collect the full Goodjer set.

Working on it.. for now I've added you to my GWJ list.

I'm @juv3nal

I have no idea how this is used, but I've just posted a world of goo article and used a #gwj which I guess works as a pointer to my contacts gwj-enabled to let them know I'm posting that explicitly for them.

avggeek: that's odd, I should appear following the gwjcc account if you try that route, same icon.

This thing is highly addictive

avggeek wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Look for lists; if you want people following you, post your own twitter (I was able to find you with a search). Avggeek and KaterinLHC both have Goodjer lists, IIRC

I'm just happy someone mentioned my list ahead of Legion's

Getting into a tweet conversation about Bollywood has its benefits

Well, I'm having fun so far with this, and it is turning up to be a good decision. Tonight I'm working on something at home for the first time in months instead of being playing hit refresh browser or firing up steam. Tweetdeck is also great to keep you updated on shortburbs, you can see the headline pop-up and decide wheter you are really interested in chasing the newsbit or keep focused on whatever the heck you're doing.

Now, don't ask me to know my rts from my searches.

Edit: You gotta love it that among my last 3 follows are:
Umberto Eco

IMAGE(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__XsZkhHUXG0/TO-keK4UrSI/AAAAAAAAAUg/b_hV7VBlF7Q/s1600/UMBERTO_ECO.jpg)

and Kate Upton.

IMAGE(http://cdn2.holytaco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/kate_upton_hot_girl_bikini.jpg)

: D

Did not realize both Ellen Page and Kari Byron were on twitter now.

Been using Twitter for a while, but only to follow some gaming, news, and tech feeds. I'm @ogifraw on there if anyone wants to follow me.

It's funny, I had to unfollow some people not because of the nature of their twits but because I had the strange feeling of not being welcomed in their followers list. Internet etiquettes elude me, you can play constanlty with someone online for months and post around here for years, and yet when I follow someone and then don't get a follow back, makes me feel like a stalker or something : /
On a lighter note, Adrianne Curry is one fun and witty nerd wrapped in a top model body, despite my initial reluctance her twits are very interesting most of the times.

I wouldn't worry about that. Jumping into people's conversations is what Twitter is all about. If they didn't want people to see it, they wouldn't say it on Twitter.

Also, sometimes people just don't pay attention to the fact they have a new follower until you say something to them and then a lightbulb goes off.

Feeank wrote:

It's funny, I had to unfollow some people not because of the nature of their twits but because I had the strange feeling of not being welcomed in their followers list. Internet etiquettes elude me, you can play constanlty with someone online for months and post around here for years, and yet when I follow someone and then don't get a follow back, makes me feel like a stalker or something : /
On a lighter note, Adrianne Curry is one fun and witty nerd wrapped in a top model body, despite my initial reluctance her twits are very interesting most of the times.

Speaking only for myself, I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the Goodjers and I hit a wall where I just can't follow more and stay sane. Between Goodjers and hockey stuff, when my client refreshes in 5 minutes, I get 10-20 new tweets.

So if you followed me and I didn't follow back, I apologize, but it's nothing personal. I'm already following too much as it is, and tempted to do some house cleaning, much as I hate to think that people will think I don't like them if I do so, when it's not true...

Also, sometimes people just don't pay attention to the fact they have a new follower until you say something to them and then a lightbulb goes off.

This is me to a T. I tend to play with Twitter in a hit & run fashion, and don't always catch on to new people. In fact, I've had conversations with folks over twitter and didn't realize I wasn't following them until they pointed it out.

Feel free to bonk me on the head if you want any reciprocal love (though I would question just why you're following me in the first place - I write nothing funny or interesting).

Yeah, I don't take it personally, not knowing anyone here *personally*. It's just that I don't feel comfortable having the suspicion I may be making someone else uncomfortable, if that makes sense.
Twitter is great, so great I have cut down my slacking quite a bit since I started using it, I have slowed down my posting here as well and following some of the regulars I have interacted the most in the past seems like a nice way to keep in touch without having to stay on top of the forums all day long.

garion333 wrote:

Also, sometimes people just don't pay attention to the fact they have a new follower until you say something to them and then a lightbulb goes off.

This is me. I've been followed by enough spam bots that I don't automatically follow anyone who follows me, and I don't generally look through my list of followers to see if there's anyone I recognize.

I'm terrible about this. I was checking Twitter fairly infrequently (like, months) for a long time and doubtless got some followers who never got the god-damned common courtesy of a reciprocal follow (trying to channel Ernie Lee there for a moment). Started checking Twitter daily recently. Will have to see if I have any followers with whom I need to reciprocate.

Just spam-reported a bunch of dirty twitter spammers. I feel like I made the world a slightly better place.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Also, sometimes people just don't pay attention to the fact they have a new follower until you say something to them and then a lightbulb goes off.

This is me. I've been followed by enough spam bots that I don't automatically follow anyone who follows me, and I don't generally look through my list of followers to see if there's anyone I recognize.

Definitely me. I tend to not automatically follow people because I get a lot of spam bots, etc. So if nothing else, send me a direct message, and I'll certainly respond to that than just a simple follow.

Coldstream wrote:

I'm terrible about this. I was checking Twitter fairly infrequently (like, months) for a long time and doubtless got some followers who never got the god-damned common courtesy of a reciprocal follow (trying to channel Ernie Lee there for a moment). Started checking Twitter daily recently. Will have to see if I have any followers with whom I need to reciprocate.

There's a flip side to this too ... I think I might have unfollowed you. Not because I don't think you're a fascinating person, but because sometimes I prune my list of folks who haven't tweeted in six months.

LilCodger wrote:
Coldstream wrote:

I'm terrible about this. I was checking Twitter fairly infrequently (like, months) for a long time and doubtless got some followers who never got the god-damned common courtesy of a reciprocal follow (trying to channel Ernie Lee there for a moment). Started checking Twitter daily recently. Will have to see if I have any followers with whom I need to reciprocate.

There's a flip side to this too ... I think I might have unfollowed you. Not because I don't think you're a fascinating person, but because sometimes I prune my list of folks who haven't tweeted in six months. :)

Well that's your loss! You probably missed at least.....one..fascinating tweet!

Dominic Knight wrote:

So if nothing else, send me a direct message, and I'll certainly respond to that than just a simple follow.

They can @mention you but can't send you a DM if you're not following them.

Folks are free to follow me, but once you've passed a few hundred followers, you start hitting a limit. I'm already at the point where I've given up on keeping up. If I really wanted to follow everyone back, I'd have to put a lot of time into making lists so that I could compartmentalize Twitter groups. "These are the GWJers," "these are my Chicago friends," "these are the digital humanities academics," "these are the game devs and journalists," "these are the game academics," etc. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.