Saturday, December 19, 2009

@Twitter Etiquette


The social network "it-girl" @Twitter has expanded too fast for servers (@Twitter is often down with maintenance) but it has also overwhelmed the general public; so much that people have no etiquette and tact within the micro-blogisphere. There can be no civility in a forum without rules, correct? Today i think establishing some rules are in order.

Twitter by nature is polarizing, with lingo such as "follow" and "unfollow". It already makes everyone take a vain premise by referring to their friends as "followers". And to make @Twitter even more strenuous on personal relationships people use the new social networking behemoth for different reasons and its not always blatantly discernable. Perchance i get on @Twitter to keep up with local professionals/businesses, i may be bombarded with friends (probably associates) asking me why im not following them on @Twitter as they have decided to follow me. Truth is i may not be on there to keep up with friends. But they may be there to simply laugh and chat with friends, thus they would like to laugh with me. Some people treat @Twitter like Facebook and that is a definite folly. For @Twitter the fact that i "know" you doesn't merit a "follow" or what Facebookers would call a "friend request".

Also you cannot take an "unfollow" personally, the person is simply not interested in reading your 'tweets' or 'twits'. This doesn't mean that they no longer like you in real life or they don't respect you; it simply means that they would rather not have you help saturate their timeline. I have to digress for a moment and note that it is very interesting to realize that your friend is someone that you really can't stomach in pure form. Once one has the realization that you and your friend have completely conflicting and dueling ideologies on life. Then there are those that just talk too much via @Twitter. You feel as though you cannot even get an honest glance at the rest of the people you would like to hear from because one omnipresent user is dominating your timeline, usually with emotional updates.

The Golden Rule of @Twitter: You cannot force someone to follow you. It is highly recommended that you follow people simply because you want to follow them, not because you want them to follow you back. This wreaks havoc on the resisting party. As a matter of fact there is a term used by a few lads i know, #twitterrape, which refers to the action of forcing someone to "follow" you.

Remember people, @Twitter is not real life and you will be ok.

P.S. what did we use the "@" symbol for before the Internet?

No comments: