• I’m over Twitter. Don’t get me wrong -  I still have it, I’m still collecting followers, and I still throw up a new tweet when I write an article.  But other than that, the twetals have fallen off the twose.

In case you live in a cave, or are my wife, Twitter is  “a  free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to other users - known as followers - who have subscribed to them.”

<– I KNEW Mr. Rogers was always after the Giant C*ck!

In noob terms, Twitter is like your Facebook status. Followers are kind of like your friends…but the ones you don’t really give a shit about or know personally.  Yeah, I mean the kid in high school in the cool crowd that picked on your when his friends were around but was nice to you when he was alone . Dick.

Why I originally liked Twitter

 

At first, I thought it was a killer app.  A great way to make new acquaintances with similar interests and a great way to follow up on what your friends are doing.  A couple of cool free tools out there like TweetDeck make it easier to organize tweets of those you follow and search for info.

 

Why I am really no longer a fan -The Popularity Contest, Hacks, and randomness

 

Twitter has become a popularity contest…and becoming more shady by the day.  Twitter etiquette usually implies that if someone follows you, you follow back in return. And there are dozens of mods to automate this process for you.  Combine that with the natural desire to have more and more people follow you, the twitter anonymity factor, and the fact that all the Internet Marketing gurus are always claiming that you want a giant “list” for marketing, and the ultimate result is hoards of people who know nothing about each other on each others “follower” list and an open door for spam abuse.

In addition, there is a new clever “black hat” technique that some of the shadier marketers have created to exploit the automatic return follow.  It goes like this.  A spammer runs a program that “follows” thousands of people.  A good percentage of those people (like me) have a mod that automatically follows them back.  The next day, the spammer runs another program that drops all those people they are following.

 The result - The spammer has a Twitter account that looks like this :  Following: 8  Followers: 15,483

At first glance, you must think that they must be some type of celebrity with so many people following what they have to say, and so very few that they follow themselves. … but nope, in truth it is a fat sophomore in a community college that lives in his moms basement and collects transformers figurines who just bought the latest IM guru course on “How to make $10 Million Dollars in 17 Seconds with my Ultra-Ninja Secrets!”

I’m perfect proof of this tactic.  I have probably pro-actively followed about 25 people EVER.  And yet I am following 779, and have 707 followers.  I’m guessing 400-500 may have come from the blog.  Others… I have no idea.  And I certainly haven’t signed up to follow 779

 

The Unweildyness

 

I can honestly tell you that I have not opened up twitter or tweetdeck in 2 months.  It’s just too cumbersome.  For every 1 person I’m actually friends with (read: give a shit what they say)  there are 100 other people posting updates on what HAS to be a 15 minute basis.

A random snippet from approximately 10 seconds of my twitter feed:

HomeChik: OMG. My dog is barking at the dog on TV.  Yawn.  

WorkAtHome: Is frugality about saving money or making you feel less guilty? http://cli.gs/Wg4aNU.  Yawn

ManvDebt: Free limited time offer on an “exlusive” new marketing tool. http://bit.ly/Hf0MC Yawn.

DanB:  LOL. Dude hitting himself in the face with a hammer.  http://bit.ly/Mt0MC  Ok, that one was funny.

The result?  About 3000-5000 new tweets a day -  That’s a conservative number, and I have a comparatively small follow list.  Imagine if you follow a few thousand people?

Talk about a frigging time waster.  Is anyone actually going to read all those?  Even if they were all useful (which is becoming less and less so thanks to the inevitable spam component) there still aren’t enough hours in a day to read all those and get anything done.

 

Why Facebook is my new Twitter, mySpace, and LinkedIn rolled into one

 

I have been using Facebook quite extensively lately.  I can still post updates on a regular basis, and I can still see my friends’ updates on a regular basis.  In addition, more and more people of my age (read: over 12) are signing up every day.  The fact that I have to approve every person before I become “friends” with them means that I only get updates from the people I actually listen to.

Now what about mySpace?  What about it?  Have you been there lately?  That’s perfect proof that giving users too much power is never a good idea.  The whole thing is a mess or migraine-inducing backgrounds, autoloading 17 random videos, unreadable text, crashing pages, and background music from the latest American Idol contestant at brain-melting volumes.  I’ll pass.   I already closed that account. (PS: Sadly, still the best place for musicians and band pages tho)

LinkedIn is still a great business tool, but with so many people now on Facebook, the controlled user experience (ie more professional, but still personal) and the clear social networking advantages that Facebook offers, I have to say that LinkedIn is drying up as well.

 

 

A quick rundown of apps/sites I like, and those that now blow:

 

Daddy Like:

• Facebook - Some things still confuse me, but getting better by the day. My goto spot for communication with people with value to me.
• Digsby - ALL Instant Messenger programs rolled into one including AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook chat, Facebook statuses, AND Twitter updates (if you insist despite my warnings…’tard)
• Skype - Still a cool app. I have the phone plan and an actual physical phone hooked up to it. $25 bucks a year. Free calls to Dad in China, buddies in California, France and Germany? Priceless
• Rapidshare - At $10ish a month it ain’t cheap, but pretty much every movie, CD, ebook, and porn ever made has rapidshare links to it somewhere on the interweb.
• eFax.com - Don’t got a landline or want to deal with a fax machine?  Send faxes right from your PC and recieve them as an email.  Pretty nifty.  Free packages available too.  You get an actual phone number that people can fax to (can upgrade to your own 800 number as well for a fee). I tried to get 1-888-spankme but it was taken…damn.   

 

Now Lame:  (Not worth the time to link…figure it out if you must)

 

• Twitter - Spamnificient waste of time
• MySpace - Should come with a Prozac prescription
• RSS Readers - Just don’t have time. I just check a few blogs I like regularly.
• Google Alerts - Same as RSS. Not enough time. But still useful if I am researching a particular topic over a period of time.
• Monster.com - Man this site turned into a clusterfuck of ads, non-responsive pages, and tedious application processes. Networking and headhunters work better anyway.

 

Scum of the earth:

 

Ecost.com - Avoid these guys like the plague.  Shady don’t even begin to cut it. NEVER EVER buy anything from these guys.  Just burn your money instead if you have to.  Amazon.com is a great alternative and usually has all the same stuff at similar prices.

 

Till next time…be cool

 

And just in case your are remarkably shallow and didn’t at all get the point of this article…..Follow me on Twitter at EvilGeniusTV

If you DID pay attention, you can find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jj.kennedy  if you have something interesting to say, I might even friend you :)  I have a pretty small group of very close knit friends, so we will see

 

JJ