Tweet if you’re not a spambot

Posted on September 3, 2012 inRandom Thoughts

In the past few months, I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails from Twitter. The subject line even claimed that John Scalzi had tweets for me! I thought, “Holy crap! What have I done that Scalzi tweeted about me? Hopefully, I haven’t shown my ass on the internet.” No, indeed, he did not tweet me or about me, or even in my general direction. The e-mail was simply to inform me that people I follow have tweeted.

Seriously, Twitter?

I guess Twitter is trying to get a few more real people to use their service. I know that I have a few fake followers. And if I ever want some more, I know where to get them. Pretty cheap, even.

Still haven’t figured out what Twitter is for, or how to fit it into my life. A blog is where I can put down lengthy thoughts much like an offline journal, only with the potential for invisible eyes to peer over my shoulder and maybe even whisper in my ear. Facebook is where I can be bombarded into apathy by political messages (more on that in another post perhaps) and keep up a casual relationship with a large number of the people I know or have known.

But Twitter? It’s pretty good for short jokes or quips. It serves up a link salad from multiple sources which is terribly ugly in its native format. Flipboard does help with that.

That’s all I’ve got. Should I give it another chance? Maybe twitter-out for about a week and actually follow it multiple times a day like I do with Facebook (which I honestly gotta cut back on, but that’s the other potential post I was referring to, so maybe later). Several SF authors I like seem to thrive on Twitter, the aforementioned Scalzi and Neil Gaiman ferinstance, but I feel like a Luddite railing against the tyranny of 140 characters.

Am I getting old, or am I right that Twitter is undercooked? Robert, did you ever learn to love the Twitter?