Managing my Twitter existence

I've not traditionally been much of a Twitter fan, once deriding it as "Wonder bread."

I've increasingly found, however, that Twitter serves a useful function for me, fitting in between blogs and instant messaging as a "micro-blogging" tool, as Glyn Moody suggests. It's also a way for me to IM multiple people at once, without any near-term expectation of response. I now post to Twitter quite often.

Despite these benefits, the only way I've found to make Twitter work for me is by limiting the number of people I follow. I follow fewer than 20 people. These are people (or companies) I know well to actually care about what they think and what they're doing.

There are other people, of course, whose opinions matter to me, but I just can't follow them all on Twitter. I'd never get anything done. Because Twitter can be so noisy, I think it's critical to limit the signal-to-noise ratio, and the best way (for me) is by limiting the number of people whose updates I receive.

I don't understand how people can follow 100-plus people in any meaningful fashion. I also don't understand why anyone except close acquaintances or friends would care what I Twitter, as much of it isn't open source-related.

For me, Twitter has become a great way to stay in closer contact with people I already know, and to add context to my blog entries. But that's because I limit the noise.

But maybe you've found alternative methods that work better for you?

[jamesurquhart]

Matt,

My method is a little different. I follow almost anyone who tweets about topics reasonably interesting to me, whether I know them personally or not. However, in my day-to-day reading, or in conversation with one or a few specific individuals, I rely on http://search.twitter.com to sort through the rubble. Most of my conversations are handled by running a search (either on the person or the topic), replying to relevant tweets, and waiting for the search page to inform me that a response has been made.

I sometimes miss those tangential ideas that Twitter is famous for this way, but I am able to use Twitter to effectively learn and exchange ideas with others I respect, while getting to know others that may earn my respect in the future.

James

[jefflac]

I use it just with the family - only 5 of us on there, but all geographically dispersed, so we have kind of a virtual kitchen refrigerator.

[nicholiz]

I follow more people than I can keep track of. But I use Tweekdeck to put the people that are more important into groups. I check the groups for new tweets. I glance over the unsorted tweets once in a while but never spend too much time going through them. It works for me.

[Matt Asay]

@nicholiz: That's a great suggestion. I hadn't heard of Tweekdeck, but will check it out.

[wallacewilson]

Completely agree Matt. I found it so hard to follow anything on Twitter, I just assumed I was doing it wrong. I'm trying to give it another shot by changing the type of people I follow to see if that matters. So far, it has not. I think it is really only beneficial to me if I am following a few people, all of which I know personally. I wont go on further here, I wrote about my confusion here if your interested: http://blog.wallacewilson.net/2008/12/twitter-im-doing-it-wrong.html

I think there is a lot of benefit to have a big conversation with everyone, just not sure Twitter is the place for it. Friendfeed is a much better place to get involved in the big conversation. Although the noise can get loud over there as well, it's easier to manage, follow, or ignore.

[AndrewRich]

I and my friends mostly use it as very high-latency IRC.

[avflox]

I follow almost 1,000 people on Twitter. I find Tweetdeck especially useful because it allows me to group people. That way, I have my news feeds in one place, my friends in another, my colleagues in another, and those in industries that matter to me in another and so on and so forth. It also enables you to make groups based on search results, so if you want to group all the people tweeting about, say, Macworld or CES, you can make a group with those searches. It's very handy, I strongly suggest you open your horizons beyond 20 people. You never know what opportunities and information you could have at your disposal this way.

There was a great post on Mashable today about how users select who they follow that I found to be true and possibly interesting: http://mashable.com/2009/01/06/twitter-follow-fail/

[the_silent_one]

Your article is a bit one sided. I found this article because of twitter and following people I don' know. Just pretending you are interested in people showing interest in you can be considered polite and get you more readers. I assume you write and expect readers to improve your lively hood? If any one wants me to follow them, just ask. I'm not sure how to give you a way of asking without a shameless plug, but I would follow you.