What is your opinion of Twitter?

[kentuck]

Do you tweet?

What is the difference in the posts on DU and Twitter? Many of the posts here are less than 140 characters (or whatever Twitter permits?)

Isn't there a lot of similarities to Twitter? Can someone state the differences?

Also, I should say that I have never sent a "tweet"...

This is not an earth-shaking topic but just curious.



(on edit - changed "most" to "many&quot

[Scout]

1. haven't used it yet...

don't feel the need to do so. don't see the attraction, but whatever floats your boat as they say.

[Xyzse]

2. Never Used It

I don't even have a Facebook or some or another.

[PoliticAverse]

3. Twitter demonstrates that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. n/t

[obxhead]

9. Couldn't have said it any better.

Not a member of the Twitterverse.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. Not a fan. n/t

[goclark]

5. I don't Tweet or use Face Book

It's all I can do to handle my emails and post here.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Not Much

It just seems like a way for people to overinform about things that don't really matter much to others.

And, as to the character similarity, there is a difference between keeping a post brief and concise and having an actual limit to the number of characters.

If someone WANTS to expound beyond 140 characters, they can, so there is a big difference to me. And, i'm not one of those who generally writes long posts.

So, i'd say the big difference is that you CAN'T post anything substantive on Twitter. There just isn't room. But, in a discussion forum, one is never that limited.

Sure, the similarities exist. There are fluff posts here. There are the +1's, and "Good Post" posts, but in almost every thread in GD, there is one post that has merit that goes WELL beyond an arbitrarily low character limit.

The difference may not be night and day, but they're real.
GAC

[jorno67]

7. Don't use...I set up an account but never did anything with it.

I guess I'm finding it hard to find the point unless you have a bunch of followers.

[coalition_unwilling]

65. To paraphrase W.C. Fields, I'd never be the leader of anyone who

would want to follow me

[Enrique]

8. i still dont get it

[EFerrari]

16. I think of it as my own personal LBN & Good Reads

I follow reporters who work topics I follow, activists who always seem to know the latest early -- in Egypt, in Arizona, in Bay Area Occupy, on the Manning case, on the wars and various DoD cases, writers and others whose commentary I like, what I get is really only limited by my ability to go out and fetch it into my stream.

There's no obligation to read any of it, and you can scan each post in seconds to decide if you want to go there at the moment or move on to something else.

Of course, you also have the opportunity to help distribute stuff you think is important by resending to your own network.

[bigbrother05]

21. Don't tweet, but found it riveting during the Arab Spring

Able to get on the ground, first hand glimpses of things as they unfolded from Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc. Was in Europe at the time and access to UK/Arab/French/Russian/German news outlets helped to make some sense of it all.

Twitter became the news and the world all at once. The mix of journalists with local citizens was unmatched in any other way.

[Common Sense Party]

22. That's where I can see it being useful, in times of upheaval, crisis or disaster.

Not posts like, "I think I'll make garlic mashed potatoes tonight." #Yum.

[HiPointDem]

59. how is it any more useful than instant messaging, email, etc? what is the point of limiting

the message to under 20 words or whatever the limit is?

[Common Sense Party]

67. I dunno, since I don't use instant messaging, but it seems Tweeting is

more of a broadcast. If you subscribe to the tweets of an author, celebrity, politician, you instantly get that tweet when it is broadcast. No one has to enter in e-mail addresses, etc, and as the recipient, you can get the tweet even if the tweeter has no idea who you are. I've never used it either.

[EFerrari]

24. Absolutely. I signed up for an account

When reading the whole #Jan28 stream became ridiculous. So, I chose about twenty user names from that stream to follow (activists, journalists and who know who else) and was off to the races. It was by far the best way to follow Egypt, in any case.

[trueblue2007]

44. I DON'T LIKE TWITTER AT ALL

[-..__...]

10. It's fine...

if you like being kept updated on other peoples bowel movements, what song they're listening to right now
what beer they're drinking or how pissed off at they are at their SO.

[sabrina 1]

17. Well, if you are using it to follow movie stars, that's what you will see. I have never seen

any of what you are describing because I don't use it for that purpose.

It is one of the best tools around for getting information as soon as it is available, faster than the news media or any other forum. For ongoing news stories you can practically be there as it is happening, depending on who you are following.

My suggestion to you is to stop following movie stars and you won't be bothered with their daily, or hourly activities.

[-..__...]

29. I don't use "Twitter"... period.

And even if I did, it wouldn't be to follow "movie stars" bowel movements... unless it was Cameron Diaz or Jessica Alba or Kari Byron (from "Myth Busters&quot , then all bets are off.

It is one of the best tools around for getting information as soon as it is available, faster than the news media or any other forum. For ongoing news stories you can practically be there as it is happening, depending on who you are following.

And what could possibly be that important that you (or anyone), would need up to the second available updates?

Not ragging on you, but if the MSM can't get the facts right even days/weeks after a breaking story... how reliable, accurate or reasonably trustworthy can the info/news "Tweeted" in by any number of hipsters and neck beards that you may or may not know be taken as fact?

What's sad... really sad, is that even supposedly reliable news sources are relying upon the Twitter contingent as a source of information.

Forget about verifying it... I read it on Twitter.

[sabrina 1]

30. Well it's clear you are not familiar with it, so let me explain. I follow credible journalists,

many of them foreign correspondents, people on the ground in various war zones around the world. They tweet what is actually happening in real time, way before their own reports even get to their news desks. During the Arab Spring eg, before the MSM even began covering it, reports were coming from people, some foreign journalists, AL Jazeera eg had people on the ground there, about a very important developing story before it became news in this country.

In one of my OPs, eg, I posted a plea for help from someone on the ground in Egypt, not certain if it was reliable, but just in case I posted it anyhow. It was a plea to the international community to prevent Mubarak from shutting down the internet. As it turned out, that was true and as a result of Twitter and many others like me who reposted it, Twitter and other social media networks were able to provide a way for the revolutionaries to continue communicating with the rest of the world after Mubarak did actually shut down the internet. You can check my journal from over a year ago if you need confirmation.

Same thing with Tunisia. Following journalists who were there giving minute by minute accounts of what was happening, and retweeting the info to followers, including MSM journalists here, made it impossible for them to claim they did not know what was going on.

As I said, you have to know how to use it and millions around the world did use it to help topple two dictators, in Tunisia and Egypt. Iraq's Arab Spring however, never made it to the MSM. Those protests were quashed by the puppet government there and hundreds jailed while others were murdered. But thanks to Twitter at least we know it happened. Our MSM never reported it.

Israel's version of the Arab Spring also went unreported by our MSM, but it was reported on Twitter. Reporters from Al Jazeera and other foreign media have been present at all these events and since I follow many of them, I do know when events of importance are happening.

To say that Twitter is unreliable, means you do not know how to use it. It is reliable if you follow only credible people and double check what you see there. In the Libya situation eg, there were many phony 'rebels' on Twitter all of whom disappeared as soon as NATO got what they wanted. But most of us who initially thought it was a genuine revolution, had already figured out the fake 'rebels' by then.

[randome]

34. Well stated.

[mahina]

45. Thankful for your post.

Reading through the thread, I'm happy to finally see one from someone who uses Twitter and answer the question.

I understand the feeling of resistance to one more damn thing...I'm resisting google+ and Linkedin too. I didn't want to like Twitter but I do.

Using hashtags, it's possible to open person to person communication across all borders.

Regarding the character limit, you can make a whole blog post with Posterous and link it to your facebook and twitter feeds, and they will automatically post over. Twitter followers will see the title of your post and a link.

I find it a very democratizing technology. I've had interesting one to one conversations with newspaper editors, journalists, etc. that are very valuable to me.

Dialogue, baby...what it's all about.

[EFerrari]

11. I love Twitter for staying on top of stories and topics I care about.

There is nothing faster that I can think of.

And it requires no maintenance beyond adding or subtracting user names to follow as you tweak what you want to read about.

[Common Sense Party]

23. So you tweak your tweets?

[EFerrari]

26. You tweak the list of people you follow

by adding usernames or subtracting them from your list.

[Common Sense Party]

28. I understand...I was just reacting to the alliteration. You tweak your tweeters on Twitter.

It struck me funny is all.

[sabrina 1]

12. It's a great source of information, depending on how you use it.

Eg, you get instant news as it is happening, depending on who you 'follow'. You can use it any way you want, another advantage. It is a tool with which you can promote a business, political information, work for a candidate. The uses are varied and unlimited.

If you want to read long articles, you can with lots of links. But you are limited to 140 characters which is enough for the purpose of spreading news or whatever it is you want to spread.

If you are using it to GET news, the more people, news organizations, journalists etc you follow, the more news you will get, instantly, faster than any other forum.

If you are using to DELIVER a message, the more people you can get to follow YOU, the better. Eg, you send a tweet to 20 followers, they all can retweet it to how ever many each of them has and so on. It's yelling in the public square and asking people to pass it along. But it will have to be something of interest to your followers to get them to retweet it.

Basically it is a fantastic tool to use however you want to and it's amazing how much information you can get about everything imaginable in such a short space of time.

How does it compare to DU? You have control over who want to associate with. You don't have to share virtual space with people you despise. It's like having your own forum, you can 'ban' trolls, people pretending to be Democrats etc etc who you know are not, or you can confront them and tell them you know what they are up to. You can iow, expose phonies more effectively and not have to deal with them for years. Word travels fast on twitter and if you have a good Reputation, your views will be respected. So far, I have not even had to deal with such people on Twitter. You choose who you want to listen to.

It takes a while to learn how you want to use it, but imo, it's worth it.

[tilsammans]

40. Agree 100%

Of all the social network sites, Twitter is my favorite by far, for all the reasons you stated.

[leveymg]

13. It's blogging for twits.

The format of 140 characters or less enforces economy of both message and meaning. On the up side, Twitter might be a useful tool for directing riots

# 2nite@

[JitterbugPerfume]

14. I have not used it BUT

from what I see of it , it can be mean and is very superficial

[dmr]

15. I have an account, but the tweets I look at

are from those I respect, or know personally. I hate silly, waste of time, tweets.

I think my favorite person I follow is Ezra Klein - he's very diverse & links to a lot of very good - and, I mean really awesome articles, pics, studies, etc. I like David Axelrod, too.

I don't send many tweets, but when I do, it's usually on things I feel strongly about, like LGBT rights, bullying, women's rights, breast cancer, etc. I don't have many followers, but Al Franken is one of them. That makes me smile.

[Luminous Animal]

18. I like it but not for the original content that I contribute (not much)

but for the information that I get from those I follow. I follow nearly every Occupy that crops up as a suggestion and I've also found some new and interesting commentators. I am a prolific retweeter, though!

[Common Sense Party]

19. I don't know how to read it. What the hell do all the ### and @@@'s mean?

I'm hoping it's a fad that will soon die an ignominious death.

[EFerrari]

20. @ identifies users, an in @CommonSenseParty or @Obama and searching that

will locate users for you

# is how you follow topics. So if you do a search for #Obama, your results will be posts with "Obama" in the body.

[Common Sense Party]

25. Thank you.

Am I correct in assuming that I need a Twitter account to be able to search?

Is Twitter at all useful if you don't have a mobile device? I only have a PC, so I'd miss out on the instantaneous nature of the updates.

[EFerrari]

27. I don't think you need an account to search, no.

Or to read your results. You need an account to follow people or to post.

I read Twitter on my laptop and since I use it mainly to get news, it works fine. You don't have to be directing a riot to enjoy updates as frequently as you choose to view them.

[mahina]

47. No, you don't need a mobile device to use.

You can log in on your PC and use it just as well.

One difference is that it's more like stepping into a stream of information, rather than picking up a newspaper. It's never done.

[AsahinaKimi]

31. I love twitter

just wish I had more time for it. Love getting tweets from my favorite pop stars!

Follow me @AsahinaKimiko

[mahina]

49. OK!

aloha~

[mahina]

50. Cannot find you

oh well! A hui hou

[AsahinaKimi]

51. here

https://twitter.com/AsahinaKimiko

[mahina]

53. There you are!

Aloha Kimi, see you out there!

[AsahinaKimi]

55. Did you add me?

arigatou!

[mahina]

57. yep

see you there sister! arigatou!

[pinboy3niner]

32. H8 it

[U4ikLefty]

70. lol...nice.

[Swede]

33. It's a tool,like facebook.

It can be used by some to post inane nonsense,by others to post political or social commentary.

[mahina]

48. Seriously!

I have an acquaintance who thinks that everyone needs to know when she is doing laundry and going to the vet. I hid her posts.

Others use it to ask for testimony for crucial bills, invite to fun events, engage on serious issues, share political cartoons and pics (blush); in short, everything you would do face to face, but scaled up, and one-way, at least initially. It's as interesting or as tedious as the people and organizations that you follow.

[Jamaal510]

35. Honestly,

I think both Twitter and Facebook are utter bullshit like every other social networking site, and I question the need for them. I am also sick of hearing on the news about what people and celebs tweet, when there are more important things to talk about in the world.

[bigwillq]

36. It's very useful for me

for my job.


I don't really like it for personal use. I have a personal account but rarely post on it.

Edit: I prefer to use Facebook for personal use.

[Iris]

37. I mostly use it when I'm at professional conferences.

Although, like someone else up thread, I will go there when a big news event is unfolding. I've actually bumped into a few DUers there!

[jp11]

38. twitter isn't really for having any kind of real

discussion. You broadcast a message/image etc, people may comment and actually carry a short back and forth but not much more than that.

On twitter when something is sent you either 'see it' cause you are on or dig into whoever's tweets to see it otherwise it will be 'lost' in the broadcasts of all the other people you are following.

On twitter no one moderates your conversations, except maybe certain censored countries.

Twitter is more about either being 'stuck' in front of a computer or being on your smart phone, as I see it anyway. Beyond that it can be 'useful' to hear about things that might be interesting. As has been mentioned a lot of it is 'broadcasting' stuff for the sake of broadcasting it. The idea that everything you do/think/see is interesting to someone and really it is because someone, if you have enough followers, will probably comment on it.

[Hermes Daughter]

39. Love it, addicted to it.

I'm careful about who I follow so I don't get trivia. You can tell worlds about a person when they're limited to 140 characters. It's also good discipline to learn to express yourself in so few words. I too began following during the Arab Spring and found it's the only way to get real news "as it's happening -- around the world." I heard the Bin Laden raid from the guy across the street, complaining about the helicopters! Great people there to follow too - on top of the news.

DU is better for in depth information that explores many facets of a situation. I learn more here -- but I wouldn't know to learn about it if I weren't on twitter.

Another thing about twitter. The TV news becomes so old it's almost laughable. Breaking? They wish. Even the talking head shows are just rehashing old-old stuff.

[quinnox]

41. never used it

not interested in it, I consider it a fad. Have no idea how it works. I could be wrong though.

[SoCalDem]

42. Not a twitterer here. I see it as a place for "mind-droppings"

as George Carlin would say if he were still with us.


I "joined" facebook to see pics that my grown sons sometimes post there, but it's infinitely creepy to me when I go there & see the "coded" friendship comments they share with their friends. It's like eavesdropping into their lives, where parents have no place

[EFerrari]

52. Twitter is where just about everyone you read in LBN

tips off their readership to a new story or an update.

[MrSlayer]

43. My tweets have made the Ed Show a few times.

That's pretty much all I use it for.

[rucky]

46. It's perfect for following breaking news

and Andy Borowitz

[mattclearing]

54. Twitter is awesome.

You say something and post a link. Boil your thoughts down to their essence. You have a potential audience of millions. Every publication you follow will drop every article in your stream. What's not to like?

[HappyMe]

56. I've never used it.

I don't really have any interest in it.

[skypilot]

58. "What is the difference in the posts on DU and Twitter?"

Thanks for asking this. I've wondered about this as well but I guess I never really cared enough to ask anyone. But now that the subject is being broached my curiosity is piqued again. What is the difference between a tweet and a short post on any other message board?

[Posteritatis]

62. When you're into "nt" territory - like posts like this - there's very little difference indeed. (nt)

[ZombieHorde]

60. I have never used those things, but I don't think they are bad if you are very careful. nt

[Posteritatis]

61. I find the changing reactions to it fascinating

DUers in general had a vast, weapons-grade stick up their ass about Twitter back around the time of the presidential election. Thread after thread treating it like an existential threat or proof of the decline of civilization or a conservative plot(!), etc., generally because they first heard of it in the context of a Republican using it or something. People were really, really astonishingly frothing mad about anything that involved it and it really surprised me at the time, even as someone who doesn't actually use it.

I still see some caneshakery here and elsewhere over it, but at the same time people have calmed down a lot. It's no longer this amazingly polarizing threat like it used to be, and I just find that transition interesting.

[musiclawyer]

63. I think I was partly responsible for Chris Hayes doing a segement

on his show. I had been begging him for weeks to cover a story and he eventually did. Imagine if everyone on DU tweeted CNN management telling them that Wolf Blitzer is an idiot and should be removed. He might not be removed, but we would reinforce to the www that he is indeed an idiot.

[LanternWaste]

64. no opinion...

I've never used it, and wouldn't recognize it as such if it were presented to me. Having said that though, read it as a knock against me being uninformed, and not some back-handed compliment against twitter.

I came into the portable e-device world pretty late and am still catching up with what's what (eg., my current cell phone lets me talk and text, nothing else).

[Horse with no Name]

66. I don't use my Twitter. I got it for a class that I was taking

the Prof used Tweets to communicate with the students.

However, my Twitter isn't tied to this account or any others....except a few of my FB friends found it and linked to it (or whatever). Since I don't use it, never worried about it.

BUT at one time I did add a few to follow. Will Pitt being one...yesterday I got some type of message from Twitter that I was sent a message by Will Pitt...who probably has no idea who I am since the name isn't even similar .

But when I went to check it out...the url was removed for abuse.

So...I am guessing I need to just figure out how to delete it since I don't use it anyway.

[RZM]

68. I tried tweeting back in 2009

Was never very into it. My gf at the time hated twitter. One night at the bar she filched my phone and sent out a tweet under my name about how twitter is lame.

After that I didn't do it much. Might try it again though. Seems to be a decent way to communicate.

[Honeycombe8]

69. Twitter has a more limited purpose, that I can tell.

Twitter is used, for example, during a live event, like a debate. The debate or network for the debate will have a twitter account, and people can tweet during the debate for other tweeters to see. Sometimes the tweets scroll on teh bottom of the screen. they can be insightful or funny.

Twitter is also used during tv shows, like Morning Joe. You can tweet in response to statements. It goes to some guy at the show responsible for reviewing tweets.f

I've tweeted only a bit. I found a time zone problem. I'm tweeting in response to, say, Big Ed's show, but it doesn't really get read, because I'm seeing the show an hour after it originally aired on the east coast.

I don't do Facebook, but Facebook may have a better setup to post real time to events.

In twitter, also, the show people also tweet. For instance, Joe or someone else on the show may forward a tweet or post an original tweet.

I'm wondering if FB has replaced twitter to large extent. The advantage of twittering, though, is you don't have to set up a FB account, which opens you to all sorts of spying, tracking, identity relealing things.