Comments on: Twitter Friday: Is There Already a Twitter Backlash?

By: Steve Gerrard

Steve Gerrard — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:21:14 +0000

I inevitably get football fans checking out my Twitter page. Most leave quickly but many find themselves interested in my photography and continue to follow me (and even reply to tweets!).

The main problem for me is people who I’m genuinely interested in who reply to tons of messages which mean absolutely nothing to me. All I see is a page of messages which make no sense unless I’ve seen the original message.

Twitter hasn’t even caught on in many countries like it has here and the US yet. I think it’s a long way from peaking.

By: Jringo

Jringo — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:14:53 +0000

it’s the nature of the beast. It seems twitter is becoming what used to be called a “link dump” to much, to fast. ultimatley it comes down to those who manange the site. as long as it does not effect their traffic and growth in a negative way it is allowed it seems. I guess like a relationship – enjoy the early days of excitment and lust for soon it turn to reality.
I do however miss the days when you could spend hours chatting , BSing and just burning time.

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:48:17 +0000

To answer your question, apparently yes.

http://www.twitterbacklash.com

By: Marina Martin

Marina Martin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 20:17:04 +0000

I was a Twitter early adopter (rather by accident) and I do miss the “old days” when I had 50 followers and there were vibrant *discussions* each night — like a chat room, but substantive, and easier to have multiple threads going at once but only contribute to those that interested you where you could. Now, I’m well aware that I don’t see 99% of the tweets in my following stream, and I don’t expect that others are hanging on my every word — though it is odd to note that with 4,000 followers a question I put out is apt to get fewer responses than back when I had 50.

A big problem is the lack of tools available for filtering. For example, I’d like to get a stream of all my followers’ tweets with a question mark symbol in them — so I could give answering questions first priority. (Mahalo Answers is doing some interesting stuff in this space, but it’s not what I’m looking for.) The idea has also been bandied about that there should be a way to indicate “most important” tweets — say, by including the ^ symbol — so people could subscribe to either my entire firehose or just the infrequent tweets that I really want to share. Tools like TweetDeck and Sideline are a good start, but Twitter itself really has to start considering this usability problem if they expect to grow.

By: Johan

Johan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:58:41 +0000

Great post! I get quite annoyed by all those follows by people who have 10.000+ users in their list. All they are interested in is for you to follow them back, if you don’t, they will remove you from their follow list after some time.

Surely for some web-celebrities (such as Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble) it is understandable that they have thousands of followers, but I really don’t get the focus on follower numbers by others.

It really does not make a big difference for the conversation whether you have 10 or a 1000 followers, what matters is that you interact with other users and not just spit out links to your own blog posts.

By: @olirh

@olirh — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 10:30:18 +0000

I find Twitter is going the same way as everyother internet fad – it gets populated by idiots who change the dynamics of the tool from its original concept. If you are able to adapt to this, you will be ok, however, this doesn’t normally happen – and they will all jump on the next bandwagon.

By: Tad Chef

Tad Chef — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:59:18 +0000

Wow. Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I should do more posts that analyze and discuss phenomena like these.

@Jonathan: How do I know whether I can entrust you my password? Why should I take the risk.

@Rhonda: You err a little. Most of the Twitter traffic comes without refer so you can only assess it. I use bit.ly to track my links to know more but there are more advanced ways to track Twitter traffic.

By: Nick DeStefano

Nick DeStefano — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:14:32 +0000

Hey Tad. You may have hit on something there. I also am a “Late-comer” since I joined in Oct ’08. At that time it did seem that the ‘twitterers’were of a different caliber of folk. They seemed more interested and less ‘daily routine’ as you phrased it. There is more RTing but I’m hoping it’s because the RTers see some thing of value worth repeating, which is why I do it. The RT that gets me is the one the RTs
the followfriday list of six someone has sent…That is lazy.
An infusion of a new group of Twitterers is needed that are more ‘passionate’ about their subjects and people,….every once in awhile one does show up and I try to engage that person and ‘train’ him/her right…lol Just doin my part……..
Twitter is there for the long run and when they understand that it can be monetized
without getting in the way of the users it will become a solid really lasting entity.

By: Christi Glaser

Christi Glaser — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:35:22 +0000

I think as more uses of Twitter are discovered, people’s “twitter purpose” will change. I’ve noticed groups whose objectives start out as “recruitment” or “resurgence” and they end up only talking amongst themselves. Still, it serves as a tool for them, and it evolves to fit their apparent needs. I think there are still people out there using Twitter as a conversation tool. You just have to be more selective in your follows to hear them and keep the conversation going.

Great topic!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:18:10 +0000

I like the #followfriday suggestion. I’ll try to explain why i suggest folks to follow from now on. Although, overtime change is inevitable and the original intent sometimes becomes obsolete or unable to keep up with the growth.

By: Rhonda Bleems

Rhonda Bleems — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:02:48 +0000

Twitter burn out to reality.
You think everyone is reading your tweets; but then you realize you don’t read more that a few tweets from your followers. Then you realize they are probably doing the same thing – not reading what you write.
Then you check your stats to your website/blog to see what the “Twitter effect” is on traffic. Gulp, not much. (in the last week of March I got 75 visits from Twitter people to my blog. I could change a keyword on my website metatags and get more traffic)
Then you think about how much time you put into it….and time to do something better:
Two twitter accounts – one for public, one smaller closed-one for family and friends.

By: Jonathan Nelson

Jonathan Nelson — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:34:52 +0000

great article. i really do think building a solid Twitter network of people that share common interests as you takes hard work. one can not expect to hit a magic button and get amazing results. i have, however, been working very hard to design a tool (with my 10 years of marketing experience) that people can leverage themselves with and achieve great success at this. i’ve received many testimonials from people thanking me for finally creating a tool that has freed them up from mundane processes and instead allowed them to focus on their core business. because lets face it. twitter is one of the most underutilized marketing platforms available today.

By: Tad Chef

Tad Chef — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:49:21 +0000

Kevin, you really made me laugh. Richard I envy you for the first coincidence.

By: David Harris

David Harris — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:35:22 +0000

We’ll look back in a few years and say “I remember the days before xxxxx when we used email, twitter, facebook etc”. I think Twitter has captured the imagination, but it’s just a slightly clunly step on the way to the next ‘big thing’. I’ll keep playing for now, and try to guess what the ‘big thing’ might be.

By: Richard Fergie

Richard Fergie — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:08:09 +0000

No Black Eyed Peas or Man U fans follow me. Probably a good thing :-)

By: Kevin Gibbons

Kevin Gibbons — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:04:59 +0000

People follow you because they think you’re a chef, that’s superb!

No wonder I get followed by a right bunch of monkeys :D