Yeah I don't see many people above 40 using Twitter this way, but a lot of young people in their 20s use it.
However, Twitter is not used purely to communicate with strangers online. More often than not, I see people using Twitter to communicate with people they already know in real life. Twitter becomes an extension to real life, not an alternative to real life.
That question of your is like asking "what can Python do that assembly cannot?" The answer is nothing: both are turing complete. The question in itself misses the point.
For Python, it's productivity and being able to think and write on a higher level. Twitter is for posting all the small things that you'd normally not bother posting on a blog, such as a one-line feedback about a movie, on-line frustration about some new software you're using, or just what you're currently up to.
What's the point of all this and what's the value of on-liner messages? Let me ask you this then: are only multi-paragraph essays worth posting? Should people refrain from posting one-liners? Are small chit-chat and worth-of-mouth in real life - the closes IRL equivalent of Twitter - useless as well?
Yes I did. What's your point? I've never claimed that Twitter is useful for everybody, I'm just claiming that Twitter is not useless to everybody, which is in contract to what Slashdotters like to claim, i.e. that it's a fad and has absolutely no value to anybody whatsoever.
You can use SMS messages but don't have to. I know you can use SMS to post but not whether you can use SMS to read. I've never used the SMS gateway though.
As for me, I use it to gather feedback about my software. A lot of my users are using Twitter, and it's great for gathering the small on-line feedbacks that people would normally not bother to post on a support forum or a bug tracker.
I wouldn't dare to claim that Twitter is a good general-purpose marketing tool. But in my field, Twitter's added value is tremendous. This is in stark contrast to what most Slashdotters claim: that Twitter has absolutely no value for anyone and that it is nothing but hot air.
I think Twitter can be best summed up as a tool with which people can spread short messages about what's on their mind. The "short" here is important: - It's similar to how many people put their mood or most recent activities in their MSN nick names, but more convenient. - Posting a message has an extremely low barrier. It's much easier to Twitter a message than to write an email, to post a forum message or to file a bug report.
One would probably not understand the point of Twitter until one has seen how other people use it. Some of my non-IT/geeky/nerdy friends use Twitter to keep each other up to date about what they're up to. For example Joe (fictional name) went to a concert. Before Twitter, he'd just change his MSN* nickname to something like "Joe | Convert XXX was great, artist YYY rocks your socks off". Today he'd post a Twitter message.
* MSN is the dominant IM program in this country.
So what's the point in using Twitter? For you, probably nothing. For many other people? A lot.
With better communication I can improve user satisfaction. With better feedback I can improve my products. What part of this isn't business value? I think you're just in denial because you personally don't like Twitter.
There already is a support forum. There already is a bug tracker. Why do you think I still take the time to search Twitter for feedback?
It usually goes like this. Somebody posts a complaint about Twitter, something like "Software XXX sucks, it says 'YYY', WTF?" These people are obviously too frustrated to take the time to ask something on the support forum. So instead of waiting for them to file a bug, I actively help them by providing a solution, or by asking them for more information. 9 out of 10 times they respond positively with more details. These are all feedback that we would never have gathered using just the support forum and the bug tracker.
The fact that you mentioned the 140 characters limit already shows that you are totally missing the point. It is not the technology that matters, it's the social aspect. The 140 characters limit is irrelevant.
I think you are missing the point of Twitter, therefore you are doing your best to paint it off as "hot air" and "overhyped" even when it has real value.
As a software development company, we regularly use Twitter to see what people think of our software and try to improve it based on the feedback on Twitter. Twitter has also been a tremendous help in spreading our news announcements throughout the community. The business value is huge.
Each time I'm baffled by how Slashdotters totally miss the point of Twitter, and try to paint it off as a useless website with no substance. It isn't about whether blogs/mailing lists/email/etc are better communication tools.
"namely, to use the DGA subsystem [winehq.org] to achieve the required mouse behavior. But that's not going to be accepted either, because someone somewhere decided that DGA was "deprecated" and never mind that the deprecation was ONLY concerning its graphic component."
To use DGA? That's not an acceptable solution. Last time I've used DGA was in 2004, and it required the application (not just the X server) to run as root because it writes directly to the video hardware. If the app crashes, the video RAM is screwed and you have to reboot. I haven't seen anybody actually using DGA for many years now so there's a pretty big chance that the drivers don't support it. And nowadays we have OpenGL-composited desktops which might conflict with it.
"You gave them that choice by signing up for an account and making information available in that fashion. If it weren't an option, users wouldn't use it. They would use a method you had chosen to implement- say, an email address or online form."
No. They were using Twitter long before I used it, and they will continue to use Twitter. They are the ones choosing to use Twitter, I didn't choose for them.
I do not promote Twitter as the primary communication channel. In fact, most of my Twitter messages only contain a one-liner with an URL that refers to my blog. Despite this there are still people who do not actively subscribe to my blog and only stumble upon my announcements via twitter.
"Saying that they use it because they wouldn't have bothered otherwise is a speculative at best conclusion."
Then I guess you'd be willing to back up your claim that they would have bothered otherwise?
People are lazy - always are, always will be. They will use whatever form of communication that they think is the easiest. And to many people, that's Twitter.
I already have a mailing list. I already have a blog. The website only links to the mailing list and the blog. People who found my Twitter account only did so by searching or by word-of-mouth. So by your reasoning the official, "better" channels already do everything the Twitter channel can do, but better. Despite this, the Twitter effect is *very* noticeable: I notice that the number who read the announcement on my blog increase significantly after I've tweeted about it. If this doesn't confirm that many people choose to use Twitter and that it's an effective way to reach many people, then what is it?
"Users who chose not to subscribe to RSS," which is less hassle than Twitter- which they have to have an account for, which has less room to fully communicate information... again, this is a choice as easily offered as Twitter."
You didn't take into account people who already have a Twitter account. There are many such people.
Look, you are trying to defend your argument by arguing how all the other channels are better. It doesn't matter whether those other channels are better. I offer my information through the other channels but people *still* use Twitter. It would be extremely dumb not to make use of it.
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's not always as easy as that. Or indeed, it's *usually* not as easy as that.
You say I need to backup my claims? What about your claim that it's always that easy? But fine, I'll give you an example: support for file descriptor passing in Phusion Passenger, a Ruby on Rails deployment platform. File descriptor passing is supposed to be a POSIX standard, but apparently it requires different code on different platforms. Fixing it on one platform (MacOS X) breaks it on another (Linux) and vice versa. Fixing it on 32-bit Linux breaks it on 64-bit FreeBSD, etc. Look at ext/apache2/Utils.h function writeFileDescriptor(). Look at the announcements for the 1.0.x releases to see the history of struggle. Had it not been for testing, this problem and the fix would never have been found. Simply checking for the availability of the API is not enough.
"Oh, GREAT. Now you're telling us that less testing is better than more testing. No thanks, I'll use a browser that gets tested on a wide variety of operating system versions, if for no other reason than it'll make it more robust even if I'm using the latest and greatest and "most fully supported" OS version."
Strawman. If a program is tested on a platform that you use, but not on a platform that you don't use, then the latter won't affect the program's stability on the platform that you do use.
"I won't use a browser that won't run on W98SE actually, as that is what most of my friends have (I run XP/SP3 and Linux). They rarely need any support fortunately, as it just works and works, and on 10+ year old 233MHZ/64M hardware."
I don't know what kind of friends you have but I can assure you they're not the majority. I can look all day in my environment and on the Internet and not find even one Windows 9x user. Just because the 3 Windows 9x users in the world happen to be in your personal network doesn't justify the amount of resources spent on maintaining Windows 9x support.
That aside, Windows 9x is simply not a "perfectly good platform".
Slashdot Mirror
I'm disclaiming any association with trolling.
Yeah I don't see many people above 40 using Twitter this way, but a lot of young people in their 20s use it.
However, Twitter is not used purely to communicate with strangers online. More often than not, I see people using Twitter to communicate with people they already know in real life. Twitter becomes an extension to real life, not an alternative to real life.
That question of your is like asking "what can Python do that assembly cannot?" The answer is nothing: both are turing complete. The question in itself misses the point.
For Python, it's productivity and being able to think and write on a higher level. Twitter is for posting all the small things that you'd normally not bother posting on a blog, such as a one-line feedback about a movie, on-line frustration about some new software you're using, or just what you're currently up to.
What's the point of all this and what's the value of on-liner messages? Let me ask you this then: are only multi-paragraph essays worth posting? Should people refrain from posting one-liners? Are small chit-chat and worth-of-mouth in real life - the closes IRL equivalent of Twitter - useless as well?
Urgh, Slashdot posted my reply under the wrong topic. Bug?
Yes I did. What's your point? I've never claimed that Twitter is useful for everybody, I'm just claiming that Twitter is not useless to everybody, which is in contract to what Slashdotters like to claim, i.e. that it's a fad and has absolutely no value to anybody whatsoever.
Everything has a life cycle. How long does something need to live before you can no longer declare it a fad? Is Linux a fad too?
Disclaimer: I am a Linux user and I've contributed to open source Linux/Unix apps.
You can use SMS messages but don't have to. I know you can use SMS to post but not whether you can use SMS to read. I've never used the SMS gateway though.
As for me, I use it to gather feedback about my software. A lot of my users are using Twitter, and it's great for gathering the small on-line feedbacks that people would normally not bother to post on a support forum or a bug tracker.
I wouldn't dare to claim that Twitter is a good general-purpose marketing tool. But in my field, Twitter's added value is tremendous. This is in stark contrast to what most Slashdotters claim: that Twitter has absolutely no value for anyone and that it is nothing but hot air.
I think Twitter can be best summed up as a tool with which people can spread short messages about what's on their mind. The "short" here is important:
- It's similar to how many people put their mood or most recent activities in their MSN nick names, but more convenient.
- Posting a message has an extremely low barrier. It's much easier to Twitter a message than to write an email, to post a forum message or to file a bug report.
One would probably not understand the point of Twitter until one has seen how other people use it. Some of my non-IT/geeky/nerdy friends use Twitter to keep each other up to date about what they're up to. For example Joe (fictional name) went to a concert. Before Twitter, he'd just change his MSN* nickname to something like "Joe | Convert XXX was great, artist YYY rocks your socks off". Today he'd post a Twitter message.
* MSN is the dominant IM program in this country.
So what's the point in using Twitter? For you, probably nothing. For many other people? A lot.
With better communication I can improve user satisfaction. With better feedback I can improve my products. What part of this isn't business value? I think you're just in denial because you personally don't like Twitter.
Not gonna repeat myself: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1267939&cid=28322355
There already is a support forum. There already is a bug tracker. Why do you think I still take the time to search Twitter for feedback?
It usually goes like this. Somebody posts a complaint about Twitter, something like "Software XXX sucks, it says 'YYY', WTF?"
These people are obviously too frustrated to take the time to ask something on the support forum. So instead of waiting for them to file a bug, I actively help them by providing a solution, or by asking them for more information. 9 out of 10 times they respond positively with more details. These are all feedback that we would never have gathered using just the support forum and the bug tracker.
The fact that you mentioned the 140 characters limit already shows that you are totally missing the point. It is not the technology that matters, it's the social aspect. The 140 characters limit is irrelevant.
I think you are missing the point of Twitter, therefore you are doing your best to paint it off as "hot air" and "overhyped" even when it has real value.
As a software development company, we regularly use Twitter to see what people think of our software and try to improve it based on the feedback on Twitter. Twitter has also been a tremendous help in spreading our news announcements throughout the community. The business value is huge.
Each time I'm baffled by how Slashdotters totally miss the point of Twitter, and try to paint it off as a useless website with no substance. It isn't about whether blogs/mailing lists/email/etc are better communication tools.
Since the patient is going to die otherwise anyway, what's wrong with trying to cure him with viruses?
Why would it be funny?
What part of my point that DGA is broken and is deprecated for good reasons makes his point that DGA is acceptable to use?
"namely, to use the DGA subsystem [winehq.org] to achieve the required mouse behavior. But that's not going to be accepted either, because someone somewhere decided that DGA was "deprecated" and never mind that the deprecation was ONLY concerning its graphic component."
To use DGA? That's not an acceptable solution. Last time I've used DGA was in 2004, and it required the application (not just the X server) to run as root because it writes directly to the video hardware. If the app crashes, the video RAM is screwed and you have to reboot. I haven't seen anybody actually using DGA for many years now so there's a pretty big chance that the drivers don't support it. And nowadays we have OpenGL-composited desktops which might conflict with it.
Firefox 3's bookmarks manager has a search bar.
Why yes:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/misc-images-xix/korean-plastic-surgery-crop.jpg
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/wp-content/gallery/cache/34579__468x_korea-plastic-surgery-kingdom.jpg
Not saying that everybody should get plastic surgery, but when done right, and done on the right people, plastic surgery can help a lot.
That's called concentrating, not daydreaming.
How about using 2 wires to send 2 bits simultaneously? Doesn't that solve the problem?
"You gave them that choice by signing up for an account and making information available in that fashion. If it weren't an option, users wouldn't use it. They would use a method you had chosen to implement- say, an email address or online form."
No. They were using Twitter long before I used it, and they will continue to use Twitter. They are the ones choosing to use Twitter, I didn't choose for them.
I do not promote Twitter as the primary communication channel. In fact, most of my Twitter messages only contain a one-liner with an URL that refers to my blog. Despite this there are still people who do not actively subscribe to my blog and only stumble upon my announcements via twitter.
"Saying that they use it because they wouldn't have bothered otherwise is a speculative at best conclusion."
Then I guess you'd be willing to back up your claim that they would have bothered otherwise?
People are lazy - always are, always will be. They will use whatever form of communication that they think is the easiest. And to many people, that's Twitter.
I already have a mailing list. I already have a blog. The website only links to the mailing list and the blog. People who found my Twitter account only did so by searching or by word-of-mouth. So by your reasoning the official, "better" channels already do everything the Twitter channel can do, but better. Despite this, the Twitter effect is *very* noticeable: I notice that the number who read the announcement on my blog increase significantly after I've tweeted about it. If this doesn't confirm that many people choose to use Twitter and that it's an effective way to reach many people, then what is it?
"Users who chose not to subscribe to RSS," which is less hassle than Twitter- which they have to have an account for, which has less room to fully communicate information... again, this is a choice as easily offered as Twitter."
You didn't take into account people who already have a Twitter account. There are many such people.
Look, you are trying to defend your argument by arguing how all the other channels are better. It doesn't matter whether those other channels are better. I offer my information through the other channels but people *still* use Twitter. It would be extremely dumb not to make use of it.
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's not always as easy as that. Or indeed, it's *usually* not as easy as that.
You say I need to backup my claims? What about your claim that it's always that easy? But fine, I'll give you an example: support for file descriptor passing in Phusion Passenger, a Ruby on Rails deployment platform. File descriptor passing is supposed to be a POSIX standard, but apparently it requires different code on different platforms. Fixing it on one platform (MacOS X) breaks it on another (Linux) and vice versa. Fixing it on 32-bit Linux breaks it on 64-bit FreeBSD, etc. Look at ext/apache2/Utils.h function writeFileDescriptor(). Look at the announcements for the 1.0.x releases to see the history of struggle. Had it not been for testing, this problem and the fix would never have been found. Simply checking for the availability of the API is not enough.
"Oh, GREAT. Now you're telling us that less testing is better than more testing. No thanks, I'll use a browser that gets tested on a wide variety of operating system versions, if for no other reason than it'll make it more robust even if I'm using the latest and greatest and "most fully supported" OS version."
Strawman. If a program is tested on a platform that you use, but not on a platform that you don't use, then the latter won't affect the program's stability on the platform that you do use.
"I won't use a browser that won't run on W98SE actually, as that is what most of my friends have (I run XP/SP3 and Linux). They rarely need any support fortunately, as it just works and works, and on 10+ year old 233MHZ/64M hardware."
I don't know what kind of friends you have but I can assure you they're not the majority. I can look all day in my environment and on the Internet and not find even one Windows 9x user. Just because the 3 Windows 9x users in the world happen to be in your personal network doesn't justify the amount of resources spent on maintaining Windows 9x support.
That aside, Windows 9x is simply not a "perfectly good platform".