Over Twittering

I am not sure there is a case of blogging too much.

But ever since I've been on Twitter, I've had this feeling that this is an activity that needs to be moderated.

I started out not knowing if I would ever have the urge to post a message. That went out the window the second day. Then I had the urge to send a message to Twitter every hour. I held back. I figured, like blogging, I should post something around twice a day.

Lately, I've been twittering three or four times a day. But I still am holding back. I could Twitter my whole life. Some do. And I have the urge to take them out of my feed. Which is exactly why I hold back.

I am curious to hear what others who use Twitter think about this. Is there a case of "too much". And if so, does it depend on the person, the messages they post? Or is there just a magic number?

Comments

[carl rahn griffith]

the old adage, 'less is more' can certainly be applied to twitter and activity of twittering - i primarily use it in the context of letting people know where i am over the next couple of days or so (to obviate the need to share calendars, email people, etc), for random observations, sharing occasional funny/sad thoughts ... it's an interesting form of communication and one we are all still adapting to so typical protocols and etiquette go out the window.

the fact it is so limited in the number of characters one can enter is no bad thing - if something can't be expressed succinctly, it's often not worth saying - as i have just proven with this example of excessively verbose woffle, no doubt(!).

qed.

[Jill]

For me, your twitters really add to your blog. Gives just the right personal touch...keep'em coming!

[rick]

I think that if I were a thief... I'd find twitter very useful.

[Scott Smith]

I'm one of your Twitter followers. I find it educational: I never realized how much travel is involved in your work.

Not that I have ever wanted your job. It's more like experiencing what it takes in terms of time to be successful.

On the other side, you give us a glimpse of your altruistic and family moments, your life's balance.

The family trips inspire me to work harder. I'd like to take my family on a vacation.

As far as Twittering, I'd say you reached a nice level where you give us the sense of what's going on without too many details.

[Michael Ossareh]

Hey - I found that twitter sapped my blog juice right out of my veins. Before I had the pleasure of sharing office space with the twitter guys I found myself essay-style blogging at least 2-3 times a week. Then I got twittered and I found my blog juice gauge just didn't ever fill up anymore.

Micro blogging had me.... for all of 15 days. Then I found it ultra intrusive - people I didn't know knew what I was doing. Ick.

I think that ruptured my blog gland because I've rarely risen to the occasion since :(

[Rex Hammock]

What you are saying -- Ditto. Absolutely. When I have Twitbin (the firefox sidebar plugin) open, I find I don't check my newsreader as often -- or blog or post to del.icio.us. However, I don't want to post tweets endlessly as I am quick to "un-follow" those who do. It's like early in ones blog-life, trying to figure out what works for them -- and those they are wanting to communicate with. If what you do ends up getting people to "un-follow" you, then you're certainly not communicating. (However, in your case, I doubt you could wear out your welcome on my Twitter list.)

[Geoff]

I enjoy reading your twitters Fred. I think you are striking a good balance. Keep on twittering away.

[KG]

I try to Twitter at most 1-3 times a day because if I do more than that, it's too distracting to myself (never gotten complaints from others...yet).

I like Twittering to share interesting links and as part of fun, random group conversations that seems to happen spontaneously. I enjoy reading your music links especially.

I think someone who is overloaded by Twitter could have a serious case of "Twitteritis", but if it doesn't bother them, then it's no problem.

[Michael Parekh]

Twit away, Fred.

[Dave!]

You're obviously more extroverted than I am. I tried Twitter for a while, but I'm with Michael... I got a bit creeped out about anyone being able to see my life with that level of granularity.

I do, of course, understand that you still control what's posted. But I think most of the time it's TMI, I just don't need to know that much about what my friends are doing, and they don't need to know that much about what I'm doing.

To each his own, though. If you like it, keep it up. I don't agree with your approach to widgets, either... :) Count me in the "Less is More" camp. :)

[Cortland]

You can never be too rich, too smart or twitter too often. Your "followers" like the updates, which is, of course, why we follow them.

[Preston]

I think it's good for two things: (1) close friend/family updates and (2) fans of an entity. If you're not that close in relationship to the twitterer, the twittering can get overboard. With family, for example, maybe you like to keep updated and you live far away. Or with fans, they want to know everything that's going on with their team. These situations are cool for continuous, real-time updating. Other than that, however, many people can't process the minutiae and are fine with the "catch-up" updates when they meet in person. I can also see this catching on huge in high school...

[Jason Preston]

I don't think there's necessarily a "magic number" of twitters per-day. I find myself twittering sporadically because sometimes I'm doing interesting stuff and other times I might as well post "working" four or five times in a row.

So I twitter accordingly, and I think that, barring the occasional random thought or mundane update, that's how twitter should be used. If you're doing something really interesting (at a conference, for example), there's no reason you shouldn't twitter fairly often with the cool stuff happening/being said.

But if you're just reading on a Sunday...maybe one or two is enough.

I also think locational twittering can be good. i.e. if you know people in the area follow your twitter feed and you want to twitter "going to the shake shack. meet me there if you want." -- sounds like a good idea to me.

[Tyler Willis]

I use it as a way to denote events that friends and family might find useful. I use it for a few reasons, but the supreme use of twitter for me would be if I got a text message from a friend (or anyone I'm following) tweeting that they where stuck at a coffee shop for the next hour a block away. That level of micro detail means (as long as we have a good filter) we can interact much more spontaneously.

[Nick Lothian]

Twitter could learn something from Facebook here:

"News Feed works so well that it’s sometimes easy to forget how sophisticated it is under the covers. If you have a lot of friends, your Facebook home page is displaying only a tiny fraction of what’s going on in your social network. The system that selects the right subset is impressive from both an AI perspective (with a ranking algorithm that uses signals based on user behavior throughout the site) and a systems perspective (efficiently processing 1.2 trillion story candidates every day)"
(From http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/07/09/insider-perspectives-ex-googler-justin-rosenstein-on-making-the-jump-to-facebook/)

Actually, someone could build an app like that on top of the Twitter API. Hmm... there's an idea...

[CoryS]

"What are you doing?" is different than "what are you thinking?", no?

Blog what you think, tweet what you do. Can't help it you do (and think) a lot, Fred. :P

[Megan]

Unlike many of my colleagues in tech and media, I don't twitter for the same reason I don't IM: for me, there is tension between focusing on important, urgent tasks (daily decision making/problem-solving, which usu are best served by focus and reflection) and keeping in touch and up to date with my network and the topics I need to stay on top of: tech, news, media, politics. The less disruptive my information/entertainment is delivered to me, the better I can focus and lead an enjoyable, productive day.

RSS Readers have changed my news/information consumption patterns in much the same way you've changed your newspaper reading habits, Fred. I also have enjoyed great positive impact from content aggregators (iTunes gives me my podcasts and music; DVR/TIVO my television programming and Netflix my films). These time-shifting technologies are more than merely convenient: they've allowed me to filter out what I don't care about, and zone in on the info I do. No matter what service or filter you choose, I think these tools greatly improve the quantity and quality of information and entertainment you can explore on a regular basis.

Twitter and IM, on the other hand, both seem disruptive and time-consuming. Living in NYC in particular, it's a great challenge to push aside daily distractions. I remember when twitter was first coming out, I was out for a drink with an established tech journalist and he said his entire paper had been twittering for the past week, and he saw the entire floor's productivity crawl to a hault. "I think Twitter is the death of society." I wouldn't go that far, but I do agree with the first commenter here about less-is-more. And I would also *love* to hear more tech bloggers discuss any of the revelations that have come out of Microsoft's talented-but-little-known group that's studying attention management. They've displayed some of their recommendations/findings on the enterprise level...but what about the productivity of the individual? What we let in, and what we shut out: that's the stuff great engineers should be working on, at the intersection of media and technology.

[bijan sabet]

It would be cool if Twitter added groups in an easy way.

Just like now when we do "D fredwilson blahblahblah" to send a direct message

I'd love a way to do preface my twits with "F blahblahblah" where F means friends or whatever group I want.

Then I would twit away even more

and when I add frends to my twitter network, it would be great if I could choose whether I get their updates on the phone or not. That would be cool

[MorganLighter]

I guess I like Twitter. We're in the process of changing our last name to Fitter and are going to name our first born Go-getter - so we can call him Go-getter Twitter Fitter. Just kidding. Great article and loved the comments.

[Blair Crookston]

I think twitters add personality to your blog and I enjoy reading them. But I usually only read the one displayed when I visit your blog maybe once every couple of days so in my case if you posted more they would probably not be read.

[Dennis Howlett]

There's an immediacy to Twittering I really like. The bit I don't like is when people use it for blatant self-promotion. That's dreary.

[Lids]

I first saw Twitter on your blog and I like it connected to blogs...because it gives even more of a personal touch to the overall blog. I guess daily updates or every couple of days is enough...I'm sort of that stage with Twitter. However, I think I am holding back...maybe it's because I fear getting addicted and twittering every hour...and then all sorts of things will come out...not just what I am doing but what I am thinking, the mood I am in and this makes it very transparent, real...I think I may go there one day!

[Lindel]

Bijan makes a couple of good points above. You really are just twittering if you send out too much and perhaps not addressing the right crowd. I find it quite a distraction, albeit addictive, when I receive updates. Also, I'm not sure that everyone else wants to know what/where I'm having dinner. The groups addition would make me more likely to use the service actively.

[Sunil Bajpai]

Twitter would be dangerous if one gets addicted to it. And those who don't get addicted would likely turn it off after a little while.

Kathy Sierra wrote insightfully about its likely psychological impact and I picked that up in:

http://sunilbajpai.blogspot.com/2007/04/psychological-harm-of-being-connected.html

[Erika Strum]

I had my reservations about Twitter (does anybody really care that I'm "bummed that it's raining?") but I have definitely been wooed by it every since I joined and I sympathize with the temptation to over-twitter. I hold myself back knowing that some people subscribe to my twitter updates via phone and I don't want to bombard them with constant updates. I think the 1-2 times per day is fair.