Comments on: Managing my Twitter existence

Twitter is a great tool, but the only way I've found to make it work for me is to limit the number of people I follow.

[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.