[subego]

I don't get you kids and your tweets.

So, when someone is "following the stream" during a breaking news event (like in Boston), what exactly are you doing?

Say you don't happen to follow anyone in Boston. Are you following re-tweets from people in your feed, or do you go someplace and trawl through tweets.

[andi*pandi]

If you don't know who to follow, you can get links to people or topics.

@personname would be a person. you can follow them.

#hashtag is a topic, you can search on this. popular topics are said to be Trending.

#bostonstrong was a good topic I believe, but better information is from following news channels or police departments who tweet.

[subego]

Do news channels do a lot of retweeting of good and relevant tweets or do they put their own stink on it?

[subego]

Part of my rationale on asking this is I feel we've reached the tipping point where Twitter is simply the best place to go for breaking news coverage. Actual news organizations are kind of lost due to lack of resources and the need to fill up every second, or the need to drive hits to their site.

[subego]

During an event like the Boston thing, would you start following a bunch of new people?

If so, do you keep following them, or do you unfollow them afterwards?

[subego]

How many people do you (plural) follow? I follow three.

[ajprice]

For stuff like Boston, news site feeds and hashtags are your friend. There are a few for #boston, #bostonhelp, #oneboston...

[subego]

So, you search for that tag, read a dozen tweets, and then search again to see what's developed in the last two minutes?

[subego]

I'm worried, because Internet, I'm coming off as confrontational.

Read my posts how you'd imagine a five-year-old asking "you mean, I get candy?"

[subego]

A cute, little 5-year-old dinosaur, of course. Like a velociraptor or something.

[subego]

D'awwww...

[andi*pandi]

ha.

None of the "people" I "follow" on twitter were saying useful things during the lockdown. I didn't even check my own twitter feed, but followed links on bostonglobe.com etc to people I didn't know who were close to the action and posting useful info.

Usually when there are more tweets, the page auto-refreshes to say "12 new tweets" or something, but YMMV on whichever mobile app you use etc.

Waltham PD also has a very good twitter/facebook presence.

[mattyb]

Being that old subego, why do you actually need to be so up to date?

[subego]

I find I hate youth more effectively when I understand it.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by subego 

I find I hate youth more effectively when I understand it.

hah.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by subego 

I find I hate youth more effectively when I understand it.

That'll take you 10 years, at least.

[Waragainstsleep]

I follow loads of people but they are mostly involved in TV shows that I watch so I know if or when they are coming back, that sort of thing. I'd quite like a Twitter client where I could separate the people I follow into different subsets. I think it would be handy for most people to have a news feed that was more fluid so you could add in trending topics and delete them easily, one for friends, and then your own custom ones for sports teams or specific events or TV shows or whatever you're into.

[subego]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

I follow loads of people but they are mostly involved in TV shows that I watch so I know if or when they are coming back, that sort of thing. I'd quite like a Twitter client where I could separate the people I follow into different subsets. I think it would be handy for most people to have a news feed that was more fluid so you could add in trending topics and delete them easily, one for friends, and then your own custom ones for sports teams or specific events or TV shows or whatever you're into.

This is one of the things I feel I don't understand. A feed isn't granular enough.

[subego]

I also wish there could be something of a split even in individual handles.

I want to know when such and such is doing an appearance on some random Internet live stream. I don't want to know they had chicken for dinner.

[mattyb]

What have you done subego?

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by subego 

I also wish there could be something of a split even in individual handles.

I want to know when such and such is doing an appearance on some random Internet live stream. I don't want to know they had chicken for dinner.

Nobody worth following will tell you about their dinner. Unless talking about dinner is what they write about, i.e. a chef or foody.

Hootsuite (free account) is your friend if you're hoping to get the most out of twitter.

[subego]

Dinner was too glib on my part.

It's more there are very time-sensitive tweets, and not so time-sensitive ones.

[The Final Dakar]

Look at it this way, much like visiting websites, there will be some experimenting and culling on your part.

[Phileas]

Culling is the word. Try and follow some people who interest you, then take it from there.

[mattyb]

For those that posted here, I'd be interested to know who you follow, and why.

[subego]

^

[subego]

I was able to find out the Jodi Arias verdict from Twitter!

Thanks everybody!

[The Final Dakar]

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

For those that posted here, I'd be interested to know who you follow, and why.

Hello? Anyone?

[andi*pandi]

a few real people, accounts from my workplace,
technical/wordpress developers/web design etc: ‏@smashingmag, @jquery, Brad Williams ‏ @williamsba, Chris Spooner ‏ @chrisspooner

amusing folk who tweet actual funny things: ‏ @SteveMartinToGo, @nathanfillion, They Might Be Giants ‏@tmbg, ‏ @ConanOBrien, ‏ @clientsfh

local things: RadioBDC ‏@RadioBDC, MA Travel & Tourism @VisitMA

commerce: JetBlue Cheeps @JetBlueCheeps sometimes tweets good flight deals.

Course I have to actually check my twitter more often...

[subego]

Here's a question. You follow JetBlue.

They send you a sweet deal.

You drop everything and go on a vacation?

[andi*pandi]

I wish.

But when I am shopping for a trip, I keep an eye out, and am more likely to pay attention to my twitter.

[subego]

[Phileas]

I recently realized that my last ten tweets was me complaining to brands about shitty service. I am the angry old man of twitter.

I go through phases. I use twitter a lot for a month or so, then don't touch it for six.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by Phileas 

I recently realized that my last ten tweets was me complaining to brands about shitty service. I am the angry old man of twitter.

I go through phases. I use twitter a lot for a month or so, then don't touch it for six.

But when you do this, don't you have 15,000 tweets to go through?

[andi*pandi]

Unlike facebook, I feel no compunction to keep up to date with the twitter backlog. It is too fast, too temporary, too immediate. Most of what I've missed is meaningless the next week. If I want to catch up with one person specifically, I go to their page and read backwards... usually only if they're amusing.

[abbaZaba]

I thoroughly enjoy the Slices app on iOS. it let's you divvy up who you follow into categories, so I can do Sports, Comedians, News, Friends I actually know, etc. have not seen other apps do this, but I very much like that way of digesting Twitter, so you're not just hit with a flood of stuff like in OSX's official Twitter app.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

But when you do this, don't you have 15,000 tweets to go through?

Nope. What's gone is gone with twitter. Like andi, I don't feel I have to catch up with past tweets.

[mattyb]

Its just absorbing info rather than talking about it, isn't it? I know you can reply, and sometimes people respond, but it doesn't seem to bring me any functionality that I'm missing from (for example) this forum.

What a suck arse I am.

[Phileas]

Depends on how you use it. When I'm in the middle of one of my twitter bouts, I talk to people quite a lot. Then, I get busy.