NYTimes Tech Guru, David Pogue, has a Twittering Tips for Beginners piece in the Circuits Section:
Basically, you sign up for a free account at Twitter.com [link]. Then you’re supposed to return to that site periodically and type short messages that announce what you’re doing. (Very short — 140 characters max.)
Then, you’re supposed to persuade your friends and admirers to become your audience by subscribing to your utterances (called tweets). Big-name tech pundits amass tens of thousands of followers. Normal people may have five or six.
I have 19. But then, I don’t follow the rules:
The Web is full of “rules” about the proper way to Twitter, and a lot of them are just knowier-than-thou garbage: How many tweets a day to send out. How many people you should follow. What you should say. And so on. The first adopters are milking their early advantage for all it’s worth.
I found one rule, though, that answered a long-standing question I had about Twitter: “Don’t tweet about what you’re doing right now.” Which is weird, since that’s precisely how the typing box at Twitter.com is labeled: “What are you doing?”
I’ve always wondered who the heck would be interested in the mundane details of your life. As it turns out, though, most people broadcast other stuff in their tweets. They pose questions. They send links to interesting stuff they’ve found online.
A follower or a Tweeter?
[A follower] criticized me for not following enough other Twitterers. The implication was that if you send out tweets but don’t subscribe to a lot of other people, you’re an egotist.
So I signed up to follow prominent tech gurus like Guy Kawasaki, Tim O’Reilly and CrunchGear. But then I was astonished to see Guy send out tweets literally *every three minutes.*
He concludes that Twitter IS a massive time drain and IS another way to procrastinate, “But it’s also…brilliant.” I’m now Pogue’s 3,272nd follower. You can follow all of us here at The Moderate Voice via Twitter too… please do!
Thanks Holly!
LATER: David Tweets, “Lots of readers pointing me to http://www.whoshouldifollow…[link] to figure out who’s good to follow on Twitter.” He’s now up to 3,450 followers. I’m up 1.