So… I make no bones about the things I don't like on Twitter.
Why? Well, we're all learning. We're all failing. And we're all getting back on the horse again. At least I hope we are.
Let me lend my perspective to the current state of the tweet.
The Twitter of Yesterday
In 2006 when I first joined Twitter during SXSWi, I was passionate and connected. I really DID want to know where my 10 followers were. I really DID care that they were going for coffee AFTER the Keynote but before the Frog Party. I really did. My company, Axiomfire, and my favorite team I'd ever been a part of, was over. Finite! Caput! Two of my followers and people I followed were members of that team, and to this day, still close friends.
By day 3 of SXSWi I had actually met one of my new Tweeple face-2-face and had lunch with them. We could not have been from further planets, but I still follow her to this day.
By day 4 of SXSWi the novelty of having my BB vibrate 3 – 6 times an hour was wearing thin. I mean I loved these people, but my goodness, so what if you are going to take a shower before heading out for more fun at XOXO bar. See the idea, back then, back in the day, was that Twitter would mainly be a phone app. (Ha ha!) Seems kinda funny now… Oh, wait. You said that 80% of all Tweets are from mobile devices. Oh… Nevermind.
The point I was aiming for was the same one I say to myself every single time Gowalla or 4square tells me "I am at…" about some one, I want to shout, "TURN OFF THE LOCATION UPDATES." If I want to find you using Gowalla or Dodgeball or MyPlanet or whatever else you're packin on that mobile computing device of yours, I'd a asked ya. Oh, I did ask you? Dang!
Let me put this another way. If I wanted to know you were going to the dry cleaners at 4th and Congress, don't you think I'd a checked the preference: [ ] please alert me for mundane updates 24/7?
The Reality of Twitter Today
So that brings up an idea for Twitter.com the Company to make some money. (We know they are still trying to figure that out.)
Give us powerusers, us sheep willing to pay for your service to kick ass, give us a power prefs setting. And here are my top opt-out prefs.
[ ] ignore all gowalla, 4sq, dodgeball, {insert new service name here} updates
[ ] ignore all autoDMs. Yep all of them! 100%.
[ ] ignore all quotes (if you didn't say it yourself, well… why tweet it?)
[ ] ignore all "using TwitCheck" type account validators (I unfollow these people anyway, but… please!)
[ ] ignore anything about "whitening" or "thousands of followers" or "sexy pics"
[ ] ignore any account without a bio or a bio link
[ ] ignore any account with < 2 tweets
[ ] ignore accounts without a geotag
[ ] ignore any account with 3x duplicate tweets (retweet offenders)
[ ] ignore any account with > 100 other people ignoring them
In a future post let's explore some "pounce" or "actionable" preferences that Twitter could implement.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/retweet-offender
More interesting Twitter philosphy under The Twitter Way tab.
<add you're "ignore" prefs in the comments and I will add them to the list. >
Makes me think of a line of jokes we should start, "Back when I joined Twitter…"
"I only had 10 friends and AT&T didn't have any cool phones."
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