How tweetly they fall (day 78)

I've been on Twitter for a few days now so I feel qualified to give my first impressions as someone who resisted the very idea of Twitter for so long.   I got an account and got into a strange loop when adding contacts such that all the contacts that it gathered from my gmail were included in my follow list.  No big deal I figured, I'll just prune later.  Well it turns out that most of them got an email from Twitter saying I was following them.   I surmised that this was the case when I started getting emails saying they were following me back.  This was somewhat disconcerting.  I wanted more control right off the bat.   Then I downloaded TweetDeck for the iPhone and logged on.  I immediately got overwhelmed by the number of letters on the screen and proceeded to ignore Twitter for a few days.  Then I installed TweetDeck on my macbook and things seemed more manageable and I noticed someone had written me a message, which helped.   I started tweeting a bit and doing some searches.  Kinda fun but with a certain amount of discomfort coming from a general lack of understanding of the Twitter language -- the format that things need to be in to properly direct, credit, and link tweets.  Compound that with the use of SMS type of abbreviated words and it becomes a lot to absorb all at once.  Half the time I think I'm doing it wrong and that I'm pissing off lots of old timers.   I screwed up a couple times but there is a delete tweet button so I could redo.

Twitter has a different feel than Facebook, must more about conversation and little observations, less about media collection or persona building.  It's more about linking people together around topics, than around pre-existing cliques.  I am following people that I don't know based on recommendations and searches.  So far I feel that Twitter is more about expanding your network than keeping your existing network up to date.  There is less commitment there than 'friending' someone so it's not such a big decision to link to someone.   Of course one of the biggest differences there is that you can follow without the other person's permission (though there are safeguards).

Sometimes it feels a bit like a cross between messaging or  texting.

I'm still learning the etiquette around twittering.   It feels like it's worth a learn and that's somewhat surprising to me.  But Facebook has taken a back seat.  It already was getting squeezed out but now even more so.  I don't like people that crosspost from Twitter to Facebook.  Seems like an intrusion.  I don't want to be that person.   We'll see if even that barrier falls.

A song for this post.