Twitter C/D

what's the point when you have FB status updates?

I'm an addict.

The status updates on facebook are one of my favourite aspects of FB, so I liked the idea of twitter when I first heard about it a week or so ago. I've signed up, but it hasn't stuck with me as yet, I think because none of my friends are using it.

It's reduced all my literary ambitions down to daily one-liners: twitter.com/fireland

So much hate for Twitter. So much.

Twitter is for productivity douche-bags and aspirational web developers.

I used to use Twitter quite a lot, but Facebook status updates reach a lot more of my friends, and I can do them from my phone as easily as a Twitter so I've kind of abandoned it.

I think Twitter is good for publishing interesting links and news and things, and for asking advice from the microblogosphere, but for the latter you'd need a whole load of like-minded followers and it's hard to get there.

I think I will have to use it for a while before I decide if I love it or hate it.

There was this thread, by the way:

twittervision

we've def. had a twitter thread before because i remember checking out the twitter homepage to see what the fuss was about, and i just happened to see alba make an update. then i told him about it here.

dats it

TWITTER: I don't get it

CIO/KIU: using ilx like twitter

I just spent another fifteen minutes going down the rabbit hole with this shit clicking on follower avatars
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080423.jpg
the text of the last panel could possibly be sold as a t-shirt

the weather alert stuff and airport delay announcement feeds seem vaguely useful but it remains the absolute dumbest shit I've ever seen since friendster

I mean what use is something that's supposed to provide low-bandwidth status updates on EVERY STUPID PIDDLING THING EVER IN THE WORLD if it also happens to be breaking constantly

identi.ca is ugly and has a terrible name, as with squoink and jaiku and whatever else, which just goes to show you what actually matters

http://www.soup.io/

IT'S THE NEW TEEVEE

let me make sure to get back here and write you guys some more about how I feel about the web's direction in a little bit

yeah I still think it is all weird and gross

"the microblogosphere"

http://www.the-trukstop.com/miscellaneous/socialmediacrity/warbbler.png

I use Twitter to keep up with a very small handful of friends (FreakyTrigger mob mostly) so mine is mostly a collection of stupid injokes that come to my mobile. I like that a lot, saves me having to text loads of people at once, but it freaks me out when I see random strangers following me. I have to purge my followers list about once a week.

I used to use Twitter quite a lot, but Facebook status updates reach a lot more of my friends, and I can do them from my phone as easily as a Twitter so I've kind of abandoned it

this is a shame, because your minute-by-minute update from "control" was fucking genius. for the few minutes it lasted.

you'd need a whole load of like-minded followers and it's hard to get there.
This is the key, really. Twitter got some ferocious use at wwdc, and was v. good for finding out what was giong on where, and what sessions to leave, etc, but it doesn't work so well if you've just trucked up in some random place.

There's a twitter client for iPhone that might help with that though -- it shows you all the updates from folks in your location.

this is a shame, because your minute-by-minute update from "control" was fucking genius. for the few minutes it lasted.

People were complaining!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1640#more-1640

as usual

the end of twitter in the UK? er: yes, as far as i can see. i don't want to have to *look* for tweets. i want them to come to me:

Hi,

I'm sending you this note because you registered a mobile device
to work with Twitter over our UK number. I wanted to let you
know that we are making some changes to the way SMS works on
Twitter. There is some good news and some bad news.

I'll start with the bad news. Beginning today, Twitter is no
longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you enjoy
receiving updates from Twitter via +44 762 480 1423, we are
recommending that you explore some suggested alternatives.

Note: You will still be able to UPDATE over our UK number.

Before I go into more detail, here's a bit of good news: Twitter
will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries
throughout Europe in the coming weeks and months. These new
numbers will make Twittering more accessible for you if you've
been using SMS to send long-distance updates from outside the UK.

Why are we making these changes?

Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send
updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to
ten followers, you aren't charged ten times--that's because we've
been footing the bill. When we launched our free SMS service to
the world, we set the clock ticking. As the service grew in
popularity, so too would the price.

Our challenge during this window of time was to establish
relationships with mobile operators around the world such that
our SMS services could become sustainable from a cost perspective.
We achieved this goal in Canada, India, and the United States.
We can provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without
passing along operator fees in these countries.

We took a risk hoping to bring more nations onboard and more
mobile operators around to our way of thinking but we've arrived
at a point where the responsible thing to do is slow our costs
and take a different approach. Since you probably don't live in
Canada, India, or the US, we recommend receiving your Twitter
updates via one of the following methods.

m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones
m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones
TwitterMail.com works on email-enabled phones
Cellity [http://bit.ly/12bw4R] works on java-enabled phones
TwitterBerry [http://bit.ly/MFAfJ] works on BlackBerry phones
Twitterific [http://bit.ly/1WxjwQ] works on iPhones

Twitter SMS by The Numbers

It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid
placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a
limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter
about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada,
India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair
billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass
these high fees on to our users.

Twitter will continue to negotiate with mobile operators in
Europe, Asia, China, and The Americas to forge relationships
that benefit all our users. Our goal is to provide full, two-way
service with Twitter via SMS to every nation in a way that is
sustainable from a cost perspective. Talks with mobile companies
around the world continue. In the meantime, more local numbers
for updating via SMS are on the way. We'll keep you posted.

Thank you for your attention,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/biz

I never understood why anyone would want tweets pushed to them. I get excited when I receive a text. I don't want to find it's some spazz like me telling the world they've found an odd-coloured bogey up their nose.

it would be nice, when the iphone's push service is switched on, if twitter would push messages down to twitterific - this would solve the 'excited when I receive a text only to find it's about a bogey' problem

If my phone had let me assign unique message alert tones to numbers like it does with ringtones and voice calls then the problem might have gone away.

Maybe the fundamental problem is that I'm not interested enough in other people.

most of twitter is exquisitely described in metaphor by that news story about the inflatable turd named "Complex Shit" blowing away and breaking actual stuff that matters

of course being me I would say the same for pretty much everything "web 2.0"

actually, i'd follow a tombot twitter feed. furious cynicism at unexpected moments could be fun.

i guess twitterific might step up to the plate here, but then again: it can't run in the background on the iPhone, can it?

(this, incidentally, is my first ILX post from my shiny new iMac.)

creepy

13.28
cozeny Wondering out loud what we'd need to start a UK group SMS system and take Twitter's market: Ruby developers, time, money, and Red Bull... ? 9 minutes ago from web

13.37
Hi, cozeny.

tweetsms (tweetsms) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out tweetsms's profile here:

http://twitter.com/tweetsms

You may follow tweetsms as well by clicking on the "follow" button.

Best,
Twitter

tweetsms
http://www.tweetSMS.com will be available worldwide across almost all carriers. We also plan to deploy an ad-based service for free updates.
38 minutes ago from web

@PurpleKitchen check out www.tweetsms.com about 2 hours ago from web in reply to PurpleKitchen

just uploaded http://www.tweetsms.com to help all of those international SMS users! about 2 hours ago from web

Used it cause I was excited (are you still an early adopter a full year after the SXSW explosion of use?), then didn't for a few months cause I didn't really see the point, now I'm usin it again cause I've had some new local friends start following me.

Good for questions, link-sharing, Microemo bursts, etc.

I have a friend who uses this to read his friends' feeds, so I basically only see it from the angle of a person who is constantly checking his phone while I'm trying to have a conversation with him. The first time I heard of Twitter was from him when I finally got exasperated with his constantly checking his phone.

Maybe I'm the one with the problem, but I can't really think of anyone in the world interesting enough for me to want updates on their activities throughout the day. I'd say the only people I could imagine wanting to twitter could be: Drug smuggler, violent prison inmate, Slash-in-his-heyday type rock star, and a dog (if they somehow managed to translate its thoughts into English text).

don't use it, don't know anyone who does, but i check this one all the time: http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

i very very rarely check it on my phone. does mobile use seem to be the prominent use?

SMS functionality seems to be its USP now that Facebook status updates have taken the mainstream microblogging space.

As I said above, people using it for pushed news bulletins and question-broadcasting rather than personal what-i'm-doing stuff is another application.

(I think you can now do Facebook by SMS in America, actually, but not here)

SMS is a fucking trilobite technology

I followed @johncleese back when his followers were in the double digits.

Seriously someone FedEx me a fucking medal already.

how the fuck are they planning to make money? Also, they could easily have charged for this in Europe, and at least started making some actual income for a change.

so: brightkite, then. anyone played about with it much? i'm not sure i can particularly be arsed, TBH.

Twinkle is useful to see if there's trouble on my tram line or the local cafe is on fire.

ON IPHONE

Brightkite seems particularly marvelous, actually. Like Twitter with upgrades.

^now this is the content i log onto ilxor.com for

The checks are actually white, btw.

Most Czechs too, fwiw.

“This account owner limits who can view their tweets”?? OK, how do I join the tweeter’s exclusive private club?

That's what it says when someone has blocked you, right? It's what I see when someone quotes or replies to Emily Nussbaum.

it's also what you see if they've set their account to private

Oh, right. In which case, you can just click to Follow them, but they have to approve it.

the blocked message just says "youre blocked" lol

No, I think they changed it!

i just checked, on web at least

it says you’re blocked when you navigate to the profile page but “unavailable” when it’s quote tweeted or in a reply chain

just got one that said "this is not available to you"

Yeah, it's only their profile where is says explicitly that you are blocked. I've only ever been blocked once that I know of, and by Tom Scharpling, of all people. I made a stupid, badly formed joke about wrestling in response to something he tweeted and he made fun of me for only having 40 followers and then blocked me, all within like 30 seconds.

It really only sucks because now, five or six years later, I never get to see the rare times he shares big news on Twitter and all I see are blank retweets from other Best Show guys and FOT.

What was the joke

I honestly don't even remember. It wasn't really a structured joke, but an attempt to be humorous in response to something he tweeted about all wrestling fans being dumb and he didn't like it.

if you dont tell me the joke im gonna block you >:[

lol

I made fun of Prodigy of Mobb Deep for only like 50 people buying H.N.I.C. 3. he thought it was funny.

RIP Prodigy

The checks are actually white, btw.

That's like saying Green Lantern should be called Black Lantern With A Green Light Inside It

except that the lanterns are green

A book review by Max:

https://www.bookforum.com/print/2703/a-psychoanalytic-reading-of-social-media-and-the-death-drive-24171

What if the urge lurking behind our compulsive participation in the Twittering Machine is not the behavioralist pursuit of maximized pleasure, but the Freudian death drive -- our latent instinct toward inorganic oblivion, destruction, self-obliteration, “the ratio”? What if we post self-sabotaging things because we want to sabotage ourselves? What if the reason we tweet is because we wish we were dead?

On the one hand, that sounds like Freudian mumbo jumbo. On the other hand, speaking as a frequent user of social media, that . . . seems about right to me.

if you dont tell me the joke im gonna block you

Haha, I genuinely wish I could remember it. It was so stupid and ill formed though, just bummed me out that of all the people to be blocked by on twitter it was someone I genuinely really liked and not some hack I was trying to get a rise out of.

Brisk God nudging it toward C these days

pic.twitter.com/o1ia31MOfD

— Brisk God (@brisk_god) September 7, 2020

i know its a known and hated death-drive machine (citation: sigmund freud, ilxor max) but i just lolled at ilxor jess calling krugman a "giant pampered clown" so who can say if its good or bad

the krugman tweet was pretty bad

I'm trying to prune who I'm following down to stable adults without checks or strong political opinions. bird watchers, etc

i try to follow only insane people

I've found my groove on twitter. It is way less terrible when I limit my exposure to "politics" on there, to only very local people & to writers on African politics. I hate English-language "media twitter style" writing, think I also hate "I'm so wacky" stuff too, but sticking only to my most core interests (I'm not following anything about music there, ILM is sufficient), I get how twitter can be good & useful.

i need to unfollow a lot of politics/sjw people and follow more gay artsy people because twitter is really making me feel like the world is ending lately, not good for my state of mind.

i have a couple dozen common US politics terms/names muted (e.g. "trump","democrats","republicans",etc) and don't follow anyone whose primary posting subject is politics, and i still get a decent amount of political tweets on my feed, so i have to imagine the normal twitter experience for people who don't take those measures is like drinking from a firehose

yeah that (xp and xxp) sound like good ideas, big mass (North American at any rate) politics talk on there is awful, but other stuff can be great!

on the other big blue social media I've hidden all the crappy politics memey #resistance & obv pro current us president crappy crap & I don't have any problem with the site anymore. like "conservatives are destroying our future" or whatever, like, duh, & there were a million of those, just have to keep hiding them, after a few admittedly tedious weeks it ended

i need to unfollow a lot of politics/sjw people and follow more gay artsy people because twitter is really making me feel like the world is ending lately, not good for my state of mind.

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Friday, September 11, 2020 11:28 AM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

In theory you can set up lists or whatever twitter calls them and then only read specific groups of people when you feel like it. I never got into that and I have an entire second account where I almost exclusively follow musicians, artists, writers. I tend to look at it less because it’s lower volume but reading through a backlog of a week of arts/cultural tweets and filling up my reading and music backlog that way is very soothing

choosing not to opine publicly on the controversial netflix movie

isn’t it great to just not have opinions on things? skipped an entire conversational thread on twitter this morning because it seemed like a lot of drama and I absolutely am not obligated to care either way

I find that artsy people tweet about politics just as much as politics people, just in a less informed and more depressed way

"choosing not to opine publicly on the controversial netflix movie" my wife watched it last night specifically because everyone on twitter is so mad about it (and also none of them have watched it). dunno what she thought, I went to bed.

I'm on twitter all the time now, it's very clearly not good for my health, but then neither is ingesting 30mg of edibles a night, or speaking to my family, or walking outside, so what do I care

sn’t it great to just not have opinions on things? skipped an entire conversational thread on twitter this morning because it seemed like a lot of drama and I absolutely am not obligated to care either way

Oi this my thing, copyright me, and I strongly recommend it and btw I still don't know who Jordan Peterson is but I get the feeling that's a good thing

I have three twitter accounts now, all following completely different groups of people, I have one just for following all the worst people, sometimes I go on there looking for racists to report, have had 20 or so removed now, but they probably just made new accounts. if I can't take those people, I just leave that account alone.
does this make twitter better? hm not really.

kinder, keep teaching us how to live

fix your posture

I've had a few Politics Twitter culls to save my mental health over the years. I hate doing it b/c I am pretty politically involved but I'm also very inclined to spiral into danger if it gets too much. Although yeah, arts & music & queer folks will post about politics plenty, and they're my actual friends so I'm not gonna cut them out.

i got a homophobic bigot wine farmer permabanned, this was the one good thing i ever done on Twitter, and it took a month of basically flagging every post they made

i'm enjoying singing "I Got a Homophobic Bigot Wine Farmer Permabanned" in my best Mark Sandman voice to the tune of Buena

i was hearing it in BB King's voice tbh

Tom Waits also works

i'm going with tindersticks guy doing pillowtalk in your ear voice

followed by a trombone solo

the most tasteful

i'm hearing charli xcx tbr

Whose Voice Do YOU Hear Singing "I Got a Homophobic Bigot Wine Farmer Permabanned" In Your Head?

Then he’s stupid https://t.co/jeYiCPfevP

— David Crosby (@thedavidcrosby) September 15, 2020