How and why I Twitter: Part 3

By kate on December 4th, 2007

Now, to the mechanics of it all. I mentioned using Facebook as well as Twitter. I also access them from my Blackberry (cell phone) as well as my computer. I’m the sort of lazy person who will go to a lot of effort up front to make things easier for myself down the line. I wanted to make it so that I could read and write status updates in only one service. And that’s how it works – very simple and efficient. Along the way, the setup got kind of complicated, though. Here’s how it looks (click for a larger version):

twitter-diagram1.jpg

Basically, I enter twitters using my computer or Blackberry. They are then automatically synchronized with my Facebook status as well as sent to my blog sidebar (so that my friends can use their method of choice to keep up with me). Going the other direction, I get twitters from my Twitter friends on Twitter, obviously. I get my Facebook friends’ statuses by piping them into a new Twitter user I created, who I “follow” with Twitter, which puts the Facebook people right in the same list as everyone else. (This Twitter user is private and locked, so I’m not exposing anything publicly.)

I know it looks like spaghetti, but I diagrammed it in case anyone else is interested in setting it up the same way. If you’d like more information, leave a comment with your question. Here are links to the intermediate services I currently use:

I’d like to conclude with a little advice if you’re considering trying out Twitter. I acknowledge that there are tens of thousands of boring twitters out there. But you don’t have to follow anyone who bores you – keep those banal “cleaning my room” and “picking my nose” people off your list and follow only interesting folks.

And don’t forget to be interesting yourself. Don’t twitter just for the sake of twittering – pause and be sure you have something to say. Remember you are broadcasting to a group. Find some witty twitterers among your friends and use them as role models (I don’t necessarily recommend myself). For example, I aspire to be as intriguing and observant as robby1066.

Over the past three blog posts, I have written the equivalent of more than 53 twitters on the subject of Twitter. As much as I enjoy twittering, I certainly believe there is still a place for long-format blog entries in the digital world.

UPDATE: Ariel has an interesting take on why she uses Twitter. I certainly share her frustration about friends who don’t twitter.


Filed under: meta, relationships, technology
« How and why I Twitter: part 2 A brief note on Facebook »



One Response to “How and why I Twitter: Part 3”

  1. Brian Says:
    December 7th, 2007 at 12:27 am

    Thanks for writing these! Like the Kindle, Twitter is one of those technologies that the early adopter in me wants to use. The problem is I don’t yet see a critical mass of I interact with there, so it seemed like talking to a wall.

    I like how you’ve bridged Twitter and Facebook, though. I can now see the attraction of getting the status updates without the Zombies invitations. I might have to try it.

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