NOOOO (Twitter)

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I have said in past threads that I have no idea what the point of twitter is.  In order to figure out exactly what this thing is I decided a month or so ago to force myself to actually use the site to see what it was all about.  I planned to use it then write a humorous article about my experience.  Sadly a guy beat me to it (full text below if the site goes down).  His article basically sums up everything I noticed with the site.  I get two emails a day from the same two 'social networking experts' who follow and refollow me over and over again in hopes that I will finally just click follow on their profile so they can boost their number of followers.  I have no idea how they find who they are following but aren't following them based on what is on the site but they do it.

THERE IS NO POINT TO TWITTER.  IT MUST DIE.

This is what I learned.

The text of the article linked to above (it's getting digged and farked right now)

3.20.2009:

The Ultimate Guide To Twitter

2:16 AM

So, after spending a week exploring all the facets of Twitter after more than tripling my followers in 48 hours, I've become quite the expert on the darling of the social networking media marketing blitz thing whatever. I guess since MySpace died and all the kids left, it got boring reporting on predators talking to themselves (and stripperbots), so the media jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. (I could continue linking well into this sentence, but am now bored with finding links.)

And so, it seems, has everyone else. Tons of celebrities and social media experts and bloggers and SEO giants and other people who really have nothing else to do all day but think about themselves in 140 characters or less and share with everyone the enormity of those thoughts are on Twitter. And so, here's my Ultimate Guide to Twitter, for everyone who is considering hopping on the tool and formulating their Twitter strategy to fame and fortune.

First off, It's important to note that, if you actually have a Twitter Strategy, you're an idiot. This isn't an insult, it's just a statement of fact, and the more we know about ourselves as people, the more we can grow and evolve and achieve oneness. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but better you hear it from me than from someone you actually care about. The fact that you can't just enjoy a service for the silliness of it and actually decided to build a "strategy" around it exposes you for who you are. I'm honor-bound to point it out to you. You're welcome.

Now, in formulating your Twitter Strategy, you should decide if you're going to take the slow, arduous, hard-fought path of amassing tons of people who don't give a rip about you and only follow you in the hopes you'll follow them back so they can grow THEIR numbers, or if you'll take the quick and easy path and follow the top Twitterers who follow you back, insult them in various ways so they reply with your name, and watch your ranks swell. 

You'll probably pick #2. It's the quick path to self-perceived glory, so I really have no doubt that that's what you'll do. I kinda did it the hard way, and I recommend the easy way. Why? Because no matter what you do, you will end up following these people anyway. It will happen. Just watch. And once you do, you'll figure out what I've figured out:

    Twitter, by and large, is a gigantic circle-jerk of marketing and SEO "Experts" and conservative Republican deleted all together retards, all tweeting and following one another in the hopes that they'll get followed back to make their numbers look great, then go off and sell their strategies to companies. Oh, and Barack Obama.

There you go. That's all you need to know about Twitter in a nutshell, if you're planning on using it in a strategy of some sort.

If you're not, basically Twitter is a service where you can let people know when you're pooping, eating, or have a clever witticism which you will inevitably butcher so that it fits into 140 characters, confusing everyone. And by everyone, I mean the friends of yours who don't mind knowing all of these things and decide to follow you, which are the same friends who already know all these things about you, which means it'll get boring eventually. Until one of you follow Trent Reznor or one of the Marketing / SEO "experts" or one of the wingnut republican dumbos and the whole cycle described above starts up. 

Enjoy!

Edited by Reb Cpl - 31 March 2009 at 2:50pm