Comments on 1,002 Followers: Still Lame at Twitter

• I don't get it.
• Posted by Brian Mulligan , Open Learning Coordinator at IT Sligo, Ireland on March 29, 2011 at 5:45am EDT
• If a system is difficult to use or use properly then it is limited in its usefulness. As someone who has had moderate success in applying learning technologies and more importantly, persuading others who are less interested to adopt learning technologies, I feel that need not be ashamed to say "I don't get twitter". To me it seems to take too much time to use correctly, seems to be pushed by people who are more interested in marketing than content, does not have enough depth and has a signal/noise ratio that is too small.
  
  Anyone remember when Facebook was going to make Learning Management Systems obsolete. I swallowed that one. You live and learn.

• Twitter
• Posted by Thom Walsh on March 29, 2011 at 7:30am EDT
• I'm in the second category as well. I use Twitter to follow and learn from people/places. If I don't find posts useful, I unfollow. I am my own filter.
  
  I know this limits my follows, but as you point out, most followers accumulated in this fashion are robots. I'm not interested in them. Perhaps I should be?
  
  I'm trying to learn about writing tweets that compel readers to pay attention, retweet, go to a link, etc.

• Follow hashtags, not people
• Posted by Kevin R. Guidry , PhD Student at Indiana University on March 29, 2011 at 7:30am EDT
• This is why I follow hashtags and not people. The signal to noise ratio is very high, the volume of messages is somewhat predictable (and sometimes when it's unpredictable that means something important is happening), and there is genuine give-and-take conversation and community among the users of some of the hashtags.

• Posted by SP on March 29, 2011 at 8:15am EDT
• I have seen it used live at events I have been in (telling the world what they are missing) but unfortunately it is a tool that is abused, like RSS feeds, to provide too many people with too little information. You know what I mean.
  
  Wanting information about something academic, I will search for it using last year's technology - a search engine. Wanting to know what friends are up to, I will phone or email.
  
  We do not have it on my Departmental website - nobody has the slightest interest in providing the world with constant updates about what we are doing.
  
  For me, Twitter is redundant. For somebody about to be kidnapped, to fall off a mountain, or who has a secret to expose about some nefarious corporation and the guards are closing in, etc. and had a smartphone with them, perhaps useful.

• Borked
• Posted by Cheryl Harrison , Marketing Manager at TeamDynamixHE on March 29, 2011 at 11:30am EDT
• Your Twitter link at the end is broken. How oddly fitting. :)

• like all tools...
• Posted by G.Page on March 29, 2011 at 1:00pm EDT
• It's how you use it. I strive to fit into the first profile, but some weeks I get busier than usual and fall into the second where I just RT a post a day or so.
  
  To me, there are some aspects of Twitter that are different than other tools;
  
  1) Its organic. It can grow, it can evolve, and it can develop crusty mold *real* fast if you don't take care of it. In this same vein;
  
  2) It's a personalized Signal:Noise ratio unlike any other (tool) I can think of. Your tolerance may be different from mine both in volume and signal:noise, but going back to #1, you have to tweak what you're receiving to keep everything in balance. About once a week or twice a month I go through the people I follow and unfollow one or two who just aren't providing the information I'm interested in. Yes, there is some social norm of "following back", but at some point, that just defeats the purpose of the toolset (in my eyes) as you sort of note in your post. An interesting side note; there are segments of my interests (A) that I follow lots who don't follow back, while I contribute/comment on interest B that many follow me for but I don't follow them, and in my eyes, that's ok.
  
  
  3) What do you want to achieve? Like all tech tools, (or just tools in general really), it works well for some uses and poorly at others. I've gained access to people who conduct/publish research I'm interested in, work on policy in areas I'm interested in, find new uses for technology in education, etc. While very possible via other methods, twitter has made it much faster (in some cases) and much easier (again, just some cases) so as long as I keep that in mind, it's generally a win for me. I've seen folks use it as a form of news and replace their daily web browsing with twitter (and links from followers) as though it were a newspaper to browse once a day in the morning. I've seen folks use it just to converse and share ideas (so few non-reply or standard broadcast links if any). It's a "what do you want it to do" question. I've found it possible to do both, receive information about topics A, and B, while only conversing about C. It takes a bit of thinking about how to structure who you follow, and your habits in what you talk about or respond to, but it’s just another layer of that S:N tweaking.
  
  4) At the bare minimum, if you are going to chuck the general timeline view as a waste/useless, at least check the mentions timeline. In my experience observing/chatting with others, few things irk the first group (Stoller et al, "power/star users" of sorts) to reach out to someone once or twice and not get a response to a fair question or comment. I tweet using my phone often, but I usually wait until I have a moment during the day/evening where I can sit and respond. Very rarely will I respond right away unless I think timeliness is a critical aspect of the communication.
  
  There are probably some others, but that's a nice start. I think the big points that might help you are the S:N ratio, how twitter as an open network (for lack of a better term) and how those affect it's usage.
  
  @g_page

• Thanks Cheryl....
• Posted by Joshua Kim at Dartmouth College on March 29, 2011 at 1:00pm EDT
• Link is fixed....(and you made me smile). Josh

• And speaking of being "lame"...
• Posted by Hoosier Prof on March 29, 2011 at 2:30pm EDT
• Joshua, please consider editing your article. "Lame" is an offensive term to many individuals with disabilities.
  
  The following is from the website http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/06/using-lame-as-descriptor-is-always.html
  
  "Regardless of the fact that lame is seldom used to describe a differently abled person today...It is a term that originates as a descriptor for those whose bodies do not function in a manner that society has deemed “normal”. It matters very little what the word has come to mean to some today; its connection with the differently abled cannot be severed as a matter of convenience.
  
  "Just like nigger or tar baby, there are some words that cannot be reconditioned because of a legacy of privilege and pain. It does no real damage to the speaker to refrain from using terms that are known to be reductive. The only reason to continue to use ableist language, is because one has purposefully chosen to express power coercively to maintain the hierarchal social positioning that we have become accustomed to."
  
  Thanks very much.

• Each social medium/tool is different but all tools are alike
• Posted by George , Lecturer at Quite large state university system on March 29, 2011 at 3:30pm EDT
• Agree with G. Page that it's in how you use Twitter and what you want to achieve. I will emphasize that you should be willing to re-evaluate what you want to achieve as you get more comfortable with Twitter. And accept that the Twitter you joined is probably not the same as the one you just posted about here.
  
  I treat Twitter as a stream. You don't try to experience the whole stream, you experience a part of it as you flow with it and it flows around you. You can't keep up with all of it, and too much artificial shielding (tools that over-filter) can reduce the serendipitous experience.
  
  Following specific hashtags (e.g. #edtech, #socmedia, #highered) works for me as a self-filter. Following a few specific humans-- educators, personal mentors whether or not they know it, and a few political types-- is plenty, as they are linked with enough others and retweet enough to give me a sense of the zeitgeist. I may need to follow up in detail by tagging/bookmarking articles/sites I'm referred to this way. I may miss a specific great resource but they tend to come back around so I've learned to let it go.
  
  Above is what I thought I'd use Facebook for (with slight changes of metaphor), but that went more personal than I expected.

• TWITTER
• Posted by JASMIN , lost on March 30, 2011 at 4:30am EDT
• @alainngeni FOLLOW/FOLLOW BACK

• Posted by SP on March 30, 2011 at 11:15am EDT
• Nope still unconvinced. There is really not much need for it in academia.
  We have our listserves, blogs, articles, webpages and all. We are drowning in information.
  WHat can twitter add except annoying messages linked to things you could have found out by yourself?
  If something profound can be said in 140 characters I have yet to receive it.

• "Lame" needs to go
• Posted by Eric Stoller , Blogger at Inside Higher Ed on April 2, 2011 at 4:00pm EDT
• I agree with Hoosier Prof...the use of "lame" as an accepted negative descriptor has to end immediately. It's a pejorative term that perpetuates ableism and is quite damaging to folks who are directly targeted by its use. It took me a while, but I have effectively ceased my use of it and I encourage others to do so as well.
  
  Thanks for the shoutout in the post Josh...I liked your thoughts..the title has to go though.
  
  And to the folks who don't "get" Twitter, well, that's your prerogative for sure. However, how did you "get" email...or even the telephone? You have spent a great amount of time getting to know how to use these communications tools. Twitter is a tool that can enhance communications...ignoring it or questioning its use showcases a lack of critical thought. It's a tool. We all use Swiss Army knives differently...

• I understand...
• Posted by Ron Bronson , Blogger at edustir.com on April 2, 2011 at 6:30pm EDT
• It's cyclical to a degree. For one, it's not just about "following" people. The interactions happen in real time largely because the people interact are engaged in the same types of projects, ideas and have common relations that get burnished at conferences, events or mutual friends they might have in the collegial universe of .edu relations.
  
  I think you're removed from that, it can leave you feeling on an island, especially if you're not actively contributing or feeling like you don't have a lot to say. But it doesn't make the medium less useful.
  
  I understand folks who still don't adopt Twitter. I've told people over the years that like anything it takes an investment of time and a lot of folks will simply adjudge that curve to not be worth it. And I don't blame them. However, for those who do and choose to, there are fairly tremendous benefit to be unlocked.
  
  But like anything, your mileage will vary. Good conversation.