After yet another grumble at jt, I’ve finally broken and will give Twitter a try (my ID is andrewferrier). I’m still struggling to see where the benefit will come from, but he made the valid point that I can’t say for sure ’til I try it – so I’ve given in and will give it a go. To be fair, I’ve come across two bits of useful info. already, so early signs are promising.
My concerns are:
- It’ll suck time. I don’t think that can be avoided – it’s just a question of whether there’s enough benefit there to make it worthwhile.
- I haven’t yet found an interface that works for me. twitter.com is too much of a stream-of-consciousness, and not rich enough to show clear threads of discussion or filter stuff out. I’m avoiding desktop clients as a matter of habit these days. Integrating the RSS feed into my Google Reader stream will just overwhelm me. This could be a deal-breaker; I’m already wondering whether Twitter actually lends itself to a inbox, read-everything model or if I should chill and let stuff slip past unread (something that sends prickles down my spine).
- Twitter’s help pages suck. Still haven’t found the number to SMS updates to in the UK (OK, I haven’t tried that hard).
You have to chill and let stuff go unread. If it was really interesting, it’s likely to crop up again. I tend to have a twitter-free day now and then when I find it sucking too much of my time.
James Taylor
13 Dec 08 at 16:12:46
Yeah, I think that’s pretty much the conclusion I’m coming to – on the basis of which, twitter.com will work just fine, I should think.
andrewferrier
13 Dec 08 at 19:12:06