just twitterin'

Myspace...


Blogger/Blogs...


Facebook...


Twitter...


And the winner is...

To say that Twitter trumps the aforementioned things is an understatement. Twitter is the leader of the pack and it's not going anywhere. I've mentioned on this blog about my love for twitter. I guess you could call me a twitter veteran. I signed up for twitter in July 2008. I'll be honest...I had no clue what it was. It was foreign to me but cool. At the time, I only knew one person on twitter (@rawdawgbuffalo). No athletes were here. No celebs. No news sites. Just common people. Twitter was so random that we all would get each other's tweets via text messages. There was no SocialScope or Ubertwitter. Those were the some funny times.

What is twitter?

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read other user messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default, however senders can restrict message delivery to their friends list. Users may subscribe to other author tweets—this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers.

One of the reasons why I love twitter is because if you follow someone's tweets, you'll get SOME insight into who they are. Also, you can say something random and your followers will engage in a conversation that could last any where from a few minutes to a few hours. Two weeks ago, I sent the following tweet..."I hate watermelon." That one tweet spawned a 2 hr conversation between me and some of my followers.

Here are some of my other thoughts (and past tweets about twitter and it's dominance in the social networking game)...

1. Twitter is 10 times better than Facebook because it's not as personal.

2. If you've ever noticed one of your Facebook friends with 15 status updates during an event (awards show, game, tv program), tell em to get on Twitter

3. I don't follow celebs/athletes. Very few of them are interactive and they usually don't have much to say. In fact, the more that they say, the less you'll probably like em.

4. I follow people who I'm interested in. Thus, I keep the number of people whom I follow at a low number (currently at 177/being followed by 164). If I was following 2000 people, there's no way that I'd be able to keep up. I can honestly say that I know at least ONE thing about each follower that I have. Sometimes I wonder why some people follow me. Maybe one day I'll ask em.

I remember once when a woman said good morning on twitter to her followers. Before I could say good morning to her. She sent the following tweet..."I'm followed by 5,628 people. I say good morning and only 2 people responded?"

That's b/c they really AREN'T following you, clown. I immediately unfollowed her.

5. You can unfollow people. I've unfollowed a ton of people. I've never followed more than 190 people and I won't follow more than that. I wanna stay connected to my followers on twitter. It's ok to unfollow people on twitter. I've been unfollowed. You can't take it personal. If you deleted a friend from your Facebook page they'd be pissed! You can't take it personal if I unfollow you on twitter. Hell, I unfollowed my brother once. So, if I unfollowed him, I'll unfollow anybody! LOL. (i'm following him again...LOL)

6. Tweets can be protected. You gotta love that. That means you control who reads your tweets.

7. News can be found on twitter minutes...and sometimes hours before it appears on CNN, ESPN, or your local news station's website. For example, I learned of Michael Jackson's death 2 hrs before it appeared on CNN.com

8. Twitter never goes to bed. I can always tweet with people at any hour of the night.

9. Almost every blogger than I know is on twitter. And subsequently, we all blog less than we used to! LOL

10. Even President Obama used twitter during his campaign.

11. Most people who say they don't like Twitter...have not tried it. #fact

12. Twitter aint going nowhere. Get on board.

@12kyle