My own little Twitter experiment
microblogging March 4th. 2008, 7:55am
I’ve been using the Twitter microblogging platform for several months now. It’s a cool quick way to send mini-blog posts into a public timeline of posts while allowing communication with other users.
By chance I happened upon this post about Twitter yesterday, which talked about one blogger’s experiment with following a whole lot of Twitter users: about 1000 of them!
So, yesterday I started to follow about 380 Twitter users (I was already following close to 150). So far about 80 of those people have started to follow me in return, which is cool, and I’ve exchanged messages with a few of them.
It’ll be interesting to see if my new Twitter followers will follow me here to my blog - always wanting more visitors to my blog.
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March 4th, 2008 at 11:21 am
You got me, Mark! I actually really count on Twitter to find new blog posts. Thanks for the add.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I would be anxious to see if Twitter followers use Twitter more than an RSS reader. Soon Twitter followers will be a measure of blog stats instead of subscribers.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:43 am
@pratt - welcome and thanks for stopping by!
@kristen - I’m starting to use Twitter to follow other people instead of checking RSS feeds, which becomes rather tedious at times.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I’ve been at Twitter since April 2007.
Biggest variable for Twitter for me?: human brain. If a Twitterer is only blog posts, then a quick unfollow. But if only @ and chattiness, quick unfollow also. Good Twitter follow for me is good conversation, information and relationship. Thus, Twitter does not replace RSS but is a human, realational RSS. Truly social. Truly revolutionary.
Peace.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I tried Twitter, I really did. But I just found it too tedious. Maybe I’ll try it again.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
@BarbaraKB - excellent points. I wonder if anyone is using Twitter for things like story telling as well?
March 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
@Mimzie - Twitter might not be for everyone. It seems to have its best effect when you’re following a bunch of other people (and some of them follow you back, too) and you can watch the continuing stream of chatter.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I use Twitter to find new blogs and to find new information about topics for my own blog posts, so here I am. About a year ago I was the anti-Twitter Queen…and I challenged readers to give me a reason to use it. They did, and the rest is history.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
That’s a lot to follow. Can you digest that much information by the refresh?
March 4th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Followed your recent tweet here, and glad I did. Thanks for following me in twitter.
Tanner Hobin - new subscriber.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Hi Mark,
I stop by most people’s blogs to get a better feel for who they are for the purposes of tweeting. I may or may not revisit them. I’m a homeschooling mom so all of the business blogs are really irrelevant to my life. I still ck them out & glean what I can though.
Just leaving you a comment to let you know I was hear & I read your blog.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
@Karoli - good point about using Twitter for blog post fodder. Don’t you find that it’s supplementing (if not replacing) your RSS reader?
@Jay - there’s no way I could digest all Tweets coming my way even if I sat 24/7. I scan and do the best I can.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
(tweet tweet, wave wave)
March 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
@Tanner - your name is familiar somehow. Thanks for stopping by, I checked out your blog as well.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
@Shan Zan - thanks for commenting. This isn’t exactly a business blog, although there’s certainly some overlap. It’s more about an amateur-eyed view of communication and social media.
March 4th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
@Steph - hey, cool! I checked out your blog earlier. Very pink. Oh, and well written.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Hi Mark, I’m a recent Twit convert. I didn’t see the point of it for awhile, I finally got it this past weekend. I sort of have it running like music in the background and found some gems of info along the way.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
@Marti - Reading through the Tweets is a bit like panning for gold, too.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
I have yet to try Twitter. I never quite saw the purpose of it.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
@Barbara - It’s incredibly confusing at times, but it’s an interesting way to dip into, and contribute to, an ongoing stream of information.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] example, Mark Dykeman is doing an interesting Twitter experiment that I believe will prove my point. Mark is increasing the amount of people he follows on Twitter [...]
March 5th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I am now a follower…lead on! I shall take your advice…Cheers! My phone is on the fritz or I would Twitter more…
March 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
@Sammy_sunshine - hey, long time no see! Hope all’s well! Yes, by all means, follow along!
March 7th, 2008 at 7:09 am
[...] couple of days ago I described someone else’s Twitter experiment. I decided to try the same kind of experiment: start following a bunch of people and see [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Hey Mark! It’s nice to meet you - I’ve been following you since yesterday, I think it’s a very interesting experiment. I’m not subbed to your blog, because, like people have said - RSS can get so tedious. And my Reader right now is in bad need of a spring cleaning - you’d just get lost in there! I always check people’s URL’s, though, when they follow me - to get to know more about them.
March 7th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Mahalo! Hey I’m on vacation.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
@Lisa Marie - nonetheless, thanks for stopping by!
March 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
@kara - hope you enjoy your vacation.
March 23rd, 2008 at 12:11 pm
[...] Twitter follower experiment, which I made an update to a few days later, seems to be paying off. I know that at one point I [...]
April 12th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
[...] few weeks ago I was following about 1400 other people on Twitter. I’m now following about 850 people. I was a bit abrupt in unFollowing some people, but I [...]
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:15 am
[...] quite frequently as MarkDykeman. I developed a decently-sized following on Twitter through my Twitter experiment. Between reading Tweets and making them I probably spend 1 - 2 hours per day on the service. [...]