Comments on “My Web Presence, it is a Changin'”

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-18T12:26:21-05:00

I still want to read what my twitter friends are up to, but I don't want to have an account. Twitter makes it very difficult to do this.

I think they actually make it pretty easy... if you just want to follow a handful of people, you can subscribe to their individual timelines' RSS feeds, or if you want to follow a large batch you can probably create a custom search and then subscribe to the RSS feed for that search.

Of course that does assume that you're willing to use RSS at all; I know some folks who deliberately deny themselves that kind of firehose of information...

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-18T13:33:32-05:00

Music blog is a great idea. I've had a long-time plan to do that but never the impetus to actually start.

As for following on Twitter, you could always make an account just for following, lock its updates, send its emails to an OtherInbox account that you block, and then subscribe to its home page RSS feed.

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-18T14:41:16-05:00

Rob, I like the idea of subscribing to a search. Didn't realize that option was available.

Grant, also a good idea.

Yay for options!

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-19T15:45:18-05:00

I agree, there's a lot of bullshit going on with Twitter lately as it's getting more and more popular, but the beauty of its following/follower design is that it doesn't affect me unless I want it to.

Ice-T's gang is obviously stupid, but since I'm not following him, it doesn't affect me.

Bots and other spam accounts follow me, but it doesn't bother me because I'm not forced into seeing their updates.

Ashton and CNN's contest was stupid but harmless, and in the end gave $100,000 to Malaria no more.

Shaq and Oprah? That's just funny: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dot_tiff/3450147199/

Twitter is still a valuable service on so many levels, and it really boggles my mind how you can admit that there are good parts by saying that you "want to read what [your] twitter friends are up to" and figure out a different way to do something that Twitter already does really well, but at the same time think the noise that can be so easily ignored is such a problem that you'd delete your account which only removes your ability to participate, when your participation was not the problem.

I do not understand.

There's a lot of bullshit on email, but you still have an email address.

There are a lot of really stupid internet pages, but you still have a web site.

There's a lot of crap on TV, but you still have cable.

There are a lot of idiot drivers out there, but you still drive a car.

That's life, man. No need to retreat just because there are idiots in the world.

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-19T18:23:08-05:00

Admittedly, it is a statement as much as it is a preference.

One of things that has always greatly annoyed me about twitter, which I have failed to mention, is that when you are watching somebody, they know. When you stop watching somebody, they know.

I do not like this. Not one little bit.

Unfortunately, secretfollower.com is already registered :(

I think I am using the "twitter popularity" issue as an excuse to cancel my twitter account for reasons that I have already had for a very long time.

BTW, Jeff, I know you can sympathize with me when I say I don't like something solely because of its popularity. :p

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-19T19:17:52-05:00

If something I'm not into yet gets super hyped, I tend to get skeptical and turned off, yes.

But if I'm into something and later it gets hyped and everyone jumps on the bandwagon? That's just the reality of being an early adopter. I'm fine with that.

The person is notified when you start following them, yes, but in your case where the only people you're interested in following are your friends, is that really a problem? You don't want me to know that you're following my updates? Why so shy?

And when people stop following me, I have no idea unless I comb through my follower list daily checking for lost followers, which I do not.

I still don't understand your decision to delete your account. All those @mr_justin's mean nothing now. What was I replying to when I said this? The world will never know. The internet is worse off without your Twitter account, even if you never used it again.

My Web Presence, it is a Changin'

2009-04-19T22:09:30-05:00

WRT to the whole following thing ... there's this bullshit underlying thing going on with twitter that if you stop following somebody then they're going to resent you (I'm referring to friends you see day-to-day). It's not as simple as an RSS feed (even though it should be) where if you want to stay up to date with somebody, you subscribe, and if you don't want to read, you unsubscribe. There's none of this idiotic "oh I want to unsubscribe but I can't because then this person will be mad at me". It's such an issue for some folks that there's a niche market for apps like "quitter". It's not a shy thing at all.

The world will be fine without my tweets. Nobody knows about the awesome conversations we have in the offline world, yet we still seem to find a way to make it through the day.

rm -fr that twitter account, it will be fine ;)