Things that are killing twitter (for me)
I realized recently I have become the old man Twitter user that complains Twitter was not was. I found Twitter as a great place to share information, connect to friends and colleagues, and discover great resources. I was an evangelist for Twitter teaching people how to use it, conducting webinars, and even drafting a users guide for higher education professionals. As Twitter grew so did the use of other services that started clogging my Twitter stream with irrelevant content which has slowly eroded my experience.
Foursquare: I’m honestly not a check-in fan, but I have started using Foursquare to mark significant places or event I want to remember. It is not connected to my Twitter account. It has become a megaphone for people to broadcast moments of there lives with no interest of real conversation. You are encouraged to check in and share wherever you go regardless of how mundane or uninteresting the check-in. For example here are the most recent check-ins in my Twitter stream.
- Target
- 6 restaurant
- Park (They are the mayor)
- Apt Complex
- Sporting Event
Of the 10 events (in the past 30 minutes) the sporting event was cool, and I think worth sharing. I could understand how people would want to talk and have a discussion around that event. I do not see the same about checking in at McDonalds.
GetGlue: I you have not used GetGlue it is Foursquare for TV. People “checkin” when they start watching a tv show. It does not crowd my twitter stream like Foursquare, but it appears to continue to gain steam. I thought about using it to check into smart people show that are on the History channel or Discovery but I do not want to be disingenuous.
Before I go too far into GetGlue I will make a confession: I tweet a fair about about college football games. Working in higher education I feel most of my followers have a similar interest, and it is a small number compared to my overall twitter count. Since I have no interest in Glee, <insert any reality show>, or awards shows there are times that twitter is rendered useless.
Things that tell me how far you run: Over 3 years ago in the early days of Twitter I had a iPhone app that tracked and reported my bike rides. At the time there were very few higher education professionals on Twitter and a significant percentage of my followers were cyclist. Since that has changes I no longer report my stats publicly because it is not relevant to my Twitter community. I may talk about going on a bike ride, the deer I saw, or a picture of something I found interesting.
There is a theme among my complaints: they are not native to Twitter. They are entered into a separate application which is then broadcasted to twitter. They rarely add value and the downed out the better content.
I love Google +, but I have a fear they will open it up where people can post the same content there as in twitter and facebook; but that is for a different blog post.
