Feb 27, 2008
The Seven Deadly Sins of Twitter
OR a list of social faux pas that are likely to get you removed from my follow list
(From my perspective: you may disagree. In fact, you probably will. Life’s rich tapestry and all that…)
- Using Twitter instead of (or as well as) an RSS feed.
Most web publishing services these days have RSS built in as standard. If you’ve got an RSS feed and I want to know when you’ve updated, I’ve already subscribed to it. If I haven’t, then I don’t, and you endlessly publishing links to your most recent blog output - constantly pushing your links at me - looks a little needy and interruptive.- This is a bit like: having a child who tells you every time they do a poo.
- Not respecting the privacy of closed communication.
Twitter is based on trust and overlapping social graphs. If someone tweets something to their protected group, and you reply in public, everyone knows. I’ve seen people’s pregnancies, redundancies and job woes “announced” on twitter by well meaning friends responding publically to private news. Just because it feels intimate and private doesn’t mean it is.- This is a bit like: hearing the loud end of an intimate conversation on a packed bus - “so Jeremy’s sleeping with Julie - it’s a secret though, don’t tell anyone!” Apart from the whole bus, that is.
- Being one-sided.
Twitter is a social transaction based on mutual curiosity - if I feel that you’re only interested in telling me about you, your life, your activities and your world, but not reading what I’m saying, then why are we linked in this service?- This is a bit like: going out and your date only talks about themselves throughout the entire evening, and doesn’t even realise when you slip away through the back door halfway through the night.
- Engaging in constant, subtle self-promotion or aggrandisment.
Constructing tweets which look on the surface like status updates, but which are actually intended to show how popular/clever/important/influential the author is gets awfy wearing after a while.- This is a bit like: hanging out with someone who wears their swimming proficiency badges twenty years on, name-drops at every opportunity and constantly twirls the keys to their Jaguar in front of your face. OR having a child who tells you every time they do a poo, and expects you to applaud.
- Being overtly conversational.
For me (and many others), Twitter isn’t a chat room. When I’m checking out people to add to my twitter list, I often look at their recent twitters. If more than half of the updates on the most recent page begin with @, there’s probably too much chat for my tastes.- This is a bit like: people talking in the cinema around you. Even if you know and like them, you still wish they’d shhhhh, or go outside and have the conversation where no-one else can hear them.
- Being lopsided.
Twitter is a transaction, so if you never update, and I’m doing all the talking in our two-way relationship, it feels a little exposing and can lead to paranoia.- This is a bit like: that bit in a job interview or on a date when you realise that you’ve been prattling on and the person on the other side of the desk has been sitting there looking at you, staring and silently judging.
- Following hundreds of people.
Since Twitter is a transaction, about relationships, about trust, the more people you follow the more unlikely it is that you’re able to genuinely follow everyone on your list. That means that there’s no personal connection anymore, and that you’re probably using the service as a broadcast medium - pushing content to an audience, rather than a way to aggregate and consume news and updates from your friends.- This is a bit like: realising that someone who says they love you has also declared their affections for several hundred others. Feel special now? Thought not.
(Inspired in part by some of the questions (and answers) in Thayer’s Twitter Survey)
All good points, Meg. I agree entirely.
1. Yes, agreed.
2. Hope and pray that I’ve never breached this, and I do try and keep it in mind at all times - but it raises another more subtle dilemma. Is it ever OK to publicly @reply to someone, however innocuous that reply is, if they have set their updates to friends-only? Because there’s an argument that says that even by invoking their private name in public, you’re breaching one level of privacy. On the other hand, if you never @reply to them, then you run the risk of breaching 3 below.
3. This is the problematic one. If @replies are to be use sparingly, and if few tweets ever occasion private messages, then how can I adequately let you know that I’m listening?
4. Guilty as charged! Well, hopefully not “constant”, but… yeah, well…
5. There’s a fine art to writing a public @reply that can still be of interest to people who couldn’t see the original, and that’s what most @replies should aim for. But the very occasional surreal meaningless one can still be fun.
6. But what if I delete the silent ones, and then they start Twittering again? Everyone should be allowed a hiatus. It’s a bit like un-subscribing to the RSS feed of a dormant blog… which I rarely do. Interesting to read that silent Twitterers can cause paranoia - that never occurred to me.
7. If your “following” vastly exceeds you “followed by”, then that’s a bit like adding a badge on your public site, saying I Am A Boring Tosser. (But if your “followed by” vastly exceeds your “following”, then what does that say? Ah, there’s the rub.)
Enjoyed this post, thank you!
I am immensely proud of my swimming proficiency badges.
Most of my English-speaking contacts don’t use Twitter as a chat application. Most of my Dutch-speaking contacts do, they use Twitter almost the same way as IRC. I’ve had to create two Twitter profiles to be able to stick to both communities’ rules, so to say. In reality, it has meant I’ve given up being part of the Dutch set. Which is unfortunate, as they are mostly working in the industry, so it would help me with my networking. I’ve been meaning to write a post called ‘Twitter Culture Clash: co-presence in a multilingual world’.
Yes x eleventy-billion.
I have been trying to think of the bast time/way to trim though. As I no longer have a perfect square - which upsets me disproportionately - and don’t know whether to unfollow those who are quiet or those who commit other sins too regularly. Though now I think probably I can’t do either to subtly. Bother.
This is so true! Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I loved the “This is a bit like” add-ons… very funny and clever.
They are but the deadliest of sins, nice one!
Silence…ummm. I find it quite easy to follow silent people. I realise I’m going through a silent phase but I would be surprised if anyone noticed.
I’m not saying I disagree with your points, indeed many of them I strongly agree with. I am mildly irritated by “RSS feeds” but started getting very angry with someone who would write @Bert: You can get them from Sainsburys @Ethel: I don’t believe he did that @Sid: That was so funny and I’m wondering about the entire backstory of people of people I absolutely don’t know. And so, I very rarely reply with public ‘@’s and even less often with a pm unless to provide a (hopefully) helpful answer to a query
Very good, I agree with the lot.
I’ll add one more.
- Announcing good night and good morning every day.
– This is a bit like standing on your balcony and yelling good night and good morning to the entire block of flats.
I’ll know you’re up when I see your first twitter and not up when it’s three am. You don’t need to say good night to everyone on your list, it’s not relevant.
I think their is now a deadly sin surpassing all others.
Direct Spamming by Corps. Have you seen this? http://twitter.com/toshibahdtv
That’s the second Toshiba ID I’ve been followed with spammy crap in as many days. It still boggles my mind how little some of the companies get about the social web.