http://scripting.disqus.com/enSat, 10 Jan 2009 22:24:49 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5051377<p>I came down here to the very same thing I love Twitter the way it is. I hate people who are spoiling it..</p>chanuxSat, 10 Jan 2009 22:24:49 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5021844<p>Very wise. I already fear there is no going back for me.</p>malatmalsFri, 09 Jan 2009 17:30:58 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5018531<p>try tweetdeck it helps make twitter more conversational</p>malatmalsFri, 09 Jan 2009 15:02:54 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5018739<p>I don't *want* it to be more conversationional. I like it the way it is.</p>daveFri, 09 Jan 2009 14:14:25 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5017282<p>Hey, thanks for being insulting.</p><p>You consider it an inane idea because it's a solution to a problem you've been told you have, but don't really want to solve. The truth is you don't want to have a conversation on twitter. Only 9 of your last 200 tweets mention another twitter user at all. You're much more interested in talking *at* people on twitter than you are *with* them.</p>Jay NeelyFri, 09 Jan 2009 14:02:28 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5017936<p>There are lots of ways I could change Twitter to make it work for<br>conversation FOr example I could make all the people who follow me also<br>follow everyone else that follows me, then it would work conversationally.<br>(Do you really think I could do that? Then I have a bridge to sell you.) Or<br>we could all join a mail list, if that's what we wanted, but we could have<br>done that and didn't. I'm talking with you now, even though I think *you*<br>insulted me, so I do like to talk to people despite what you say. In the<br>right medium. Not Twitter, maybe for you but not for me -- hence the title<br>of my piece, which I hope you read and considered before telling me how to<br>live my life. :-)</p>daveFri, 09 Jan 2009 13:28:27 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5014311<p>"Because I might have said 5 things in the last hour, and how do I know which one my correspondent is referring to."</p><p>Couldn't this be a sign that you're talking too much? If your discourse is proceeding at such a pace that the majority of people haven't had time to receive, understand, and respond to your messages, is the solution (assuming the problem is 'I'd like to have a conversation, but I can't.') for everyone else to speed up, or you to slow down?</p>Jay NeelyFri, 09 Jan 2009 12:51:39 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-5015820<p>That's one of the most inane ideas ever posted in this forum.<br>Congratulations on that. Reminds me of what the Austrian king said to Mozart<br>in the movie Amadeus. He loved the music but there was just one thing wrong<br>with it -- "Too many notes." Just get rid of some notes and all will be<br>better. Poor Mozart was left befuddled becase he truly admired the king, and<br>didn't understand what he had just said.</p>daveFri, 09 Jan 2009 12:16:16 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4973007<p>It's not a blog, that's for sure. Maybe more of a marketing tool than anything else, collecting 'followers'. Haven't quite figured out the best use. Besides, you have to know abbreviations that are like code to anyone over 50. <br>One critique; it's like soundbites on network tv. No real content, just teasers. Nader would hate it.</p>furiousdreamsWed, 07 Jan 2009 21:30:31 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4936132<p>the 140 char limit is based off that being 1 text message worth ;-)</p>immaTue, 06 Jan 2009 13:24:07 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4936106<p>methinks you could try something like this :<br> the sky is blue : <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky#Sky_luminance_and_colors" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky#Sky_luminance_and_colors">http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...</a> ;-)<br>or maybe use tinyurl/similar.<br>basically if it's a complicated explanation, you give a brief summary &amp; a link to somewhere where you(or someone else) explains the detail ...<br>3 is usually the best idea, as if it seems unclear to them, they're likely to have provided more details, although I find twitter a rather disorientating too. On the other hand, it is nice and simple to use :-)</p>immaTue, 06 Jan 2009 13:22:49 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4918131<p>This is the exact reason that responses in Twitter should be handled similar to status comments in Facebook. I am really trying to use twitter effectively - but like yourself, I think that many things fall apart on a logical level. Maybe it was just meant to produce background noise and not conversations...</p>jonMon, 05 Jan 2009 16:08:34 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4913331<p>That option does not mean what you think it means. It means "see replies by people I follow to people I do not follow." This is in contrast to the lesser option, which means "see replies by people I follow but only if they're replying to other people I follow."</p><p>There is no option for seeing replies by people you do not follow. (Twitter states that this is to discourage spam.) That's why we need "track."</p>danmactoughMon, 05 Jan 2009 13:27:09 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4913195<p>I find limits in the micro blogging format but am very enthusiastic about the thought process.</p><p>When we started to build the Quired platform back in 2005 the thought we had was to create threaded experiences of media to our community. Developing this concept has taken so much longer than we thought all the while witnessing the explosion of Twitter in the mean time.</p><p>We are building a follow system into Quired which will initially allow users to follow conversations of other profile members in their blogs but within the next 6 months will allow the ability to follow a conversation related to a specific product, service, event or idea.</p><p>This is where we think social media is moving but not in a micro blogging format. (Of course we could be wrong) We feel the summary of the blog would allow for a visitor to determine if they are interested to engage with the conversation. If so they can click to view more of the post and then look at all of the related pages, video, audio and photos linked to the post.</p><p>When it comes to direct conversations with a follower, we are working on tools to help the collaborative process such as creating a blog thread around an idea and letting followers participate in the related conversation.</p><p>Twitter nails it when it comes to sharing. One of the biggest benefits of Twitter is how easy it is to update without validation. I think this is maybe on of the problems though. When you make it so easy, you lose the texture of a conversation and less of a reason to engage. Just like your article states, how do you have a conversation this way.</p><p>One fix would be to create a link inside the tweet that references the specific post the conversation is related to but the conversations are so fleeting and limited it seems almost impossible to herd the cats.</p><p>For Quired, blogging and social media is more about the relationships that can be built through these tools. That is why we like the term "Conversation Marketing" better than "Social Media".</p><p>We want our users and followers to engage with the thread and learn something new or teach something new. Chatter is ok as long as it leads to moving something forward. Whether it be a better feeling about yourself or the purchase of a product you never realized you needed.</p><p>As a society, we have so much to learn and share. I would like to see the tools evolve to where the technology dissapears and we capture the feeling of a family gathering around an old radio to listen to their favorite program together (even thought they may not be together) or that great conversation with a neighbor on the stoop.</p><p>Before the internet, did we really need to know what our neighbor ate for breakfast. Or were the most enjoyable moments, when they shared something we never knew or something they bought that we ended up having to buy.</p><p>And why can't we embrace wanting to monetize conversations through these tools?</p><p>Maybe it is the term "Social" media that is so closely associated with community that scares the "Social Media" masses. One thing for certain is that communities do not thrive without commerce taking place in their community.</p><p>When you post the question "What is Twitter used for". What else could it be used for other than helping share information between parties. Just the fact of what it is should lend itself to be better at what it should do.</p><p>I certainly admire Twitter for creating an incredible vehicle though. As with anything it needs to evolve.</p><p>Quired certainly knows about the importance of change.</p><p></p>J. Paul DuplantisMon, 05 Jan 2009 13:19:12 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4912656<p>I'm running into this problem myself, I want to use it conversationally but it seems that just annoys my followers.</p><p>But I don't just want to use it for broadcasting messages because I thought that's what RSS is for.</p><p>I flip flop in my opinion as to what is better. I think maybe I need to find a way to tie my twitter friends to IM accts so I can take conversations there. But then it's not a public searchable conversation and that's sort of the point most of the time</p>TCG SterlingMon, 05 Jan 2009 12:43:39 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4913251<p>I think Twitter basically is RSS -- in both directions. It's sort of a<br>lightweight interactive version.</p>daveMon, 05 Jan 2009 12:23:25 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4911898<p>you can choos to don't see replies to people you don't follow. This way, you don't see half conversations. </p>Sérgio RebeloMon, 05 Jan 2009 11:54:51 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4893143<p>I don't think I'm disagreeing with you, although I have had good conversations on Twitter/Identica. I wonder if the fact you follow nearly 10 times as many people as I do might make conversation 10 times more difficult for you. (Not to mention the fact that I'm only actively following about half of the people I follow, if that. The rest are bots and people I follow but I don't have a two-way relationship with.)</p>danmactoughMon, 05 Jan 2009 10:48:19 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4889345<p>The only reason I have twitter around is because some of the community I reach out to use Twitter. Quite frankly, Friendfeed satisfies everything I get out of twitter, but is way more flexible and definitely caters to the threaded conversation. Once again it all comes back to where your community resides. For me, most of my real-life community resides virtually on Facebook, so that is where my FriendFeed utlimately winds up. In fact if Facebook had the lifestreaming capability of Friendfeed I'd probably find myself moving away from FriendFeed.</p><p>I find the noise on Twitter (and FriendFeed for that matter if you don't filter well) horrendous. I still think people should twitter their professional lives independently of their personal ones for obvious reasons. For instance, on a personal learning network side of things, I couldn't care less what a person had for dinner, but I do care about an informative blog entry. I think we'll hear more of this as these apps become more mainstream and used for content aggregation.</p>Phil AshmanMon, 05 Jan 2009 02:05:11 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4888963<p>I installed the Power Twitter extension for FireFox, search for the most unusual phrase in the Tweet or the Twitter users involved and use the search results to figure out the context. When I start a conversation I usually start it at FriendFeed or in my blog and then Tweet to send interested participations to those sites BECAUSE they ARE better for true discussions. </p>Gail GardnerMon, 05 Jan 2009 01:13:31 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4888531<p>I had this exact *conversation* with Gil Yehuda of Forrester. In the conversation, he tweeted: "@bhc3 still not like discussion forum. If this answer was delayed an hour, how'd you know what I was answering? (even with @ or DM)?" I put the onus on each party after the initial tweet. I'll often use "re:" in my reply tweets (e.g. "re: dinner at Chez Panisse") for the reasons you outline above - it can be hard to know to what I'm replying.</p><p>It's a convention I've picked up due to Twitter's lack of threading. FriendFeed more closely satisfies the threaded conversations for me. Not sure I'd want to see things overly threaded like a discussion forum.</p>Hutch CarpenterMon, 05 Jan 2009 00:27:20 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4887721<p>"But I usually choose option #1 [i.e., ignore it]." Yup. That's the only rational response. If someone can't make himself understood when he asks you a question, he has no right to expect you to respond coherently (or at all).</p><p>Would threading in Twitter (or better client support for "in_reply_to") help? Maybe some of the time. But you'll still have knuckleheads replying in the wrong thread.</p><p>I've had good conversations via Twitter (and Identica). But they must have been really annoying to my followers (such as they are) who didn't follow users on all sides of the conversations. Actually, I know they were annoying because I've seen plenty such half-conversations.</p><p>Sometimes Twitter feels like it should be conversational -- like IM -- because it's so easy to fart out a 140 character tweet. But Twitter isn't IM, and public tweets are often not a good medium for back-and-forth conversation.</p><p>Frankly, I think you nailed it. If a follower wants to turn a tweet into a conversation, DM (or -- god forbid -- email) is probably the way to proceed.</p><p>Unless someone is just trying to use their Twitter stream to make it look like they have Dave Winer's ear! ;-)</p>danmactoughSun, 04 Jan 2009 23:03:09 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4887928<p>But it's hard to make oneself understood in 140 characters -- that's why<br>conversation, beyond grunting "hello everybuddy," is so hard in Twitter.</p>daveSun, 04 Jan 2009 22:25:13 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4887146<p>I rarely reply to people in response to a particular tweet. More often than not, I manually type their handle in, or pick their latest one.</p>Ari HerzogSun, 04 Jan 2009 22:08:51 -0000http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/01/04/whyTwitterCantBeConversati.html#comment-4885966<p>threading is a must in order to get to the next twitter stage. still, with or without twitter, the 140 character limit is a transformational limit. i suspect "conversation" on twitter is very different from what most take conversation to be on other medium, or from plain conversation one on one.</p><p>someone - i think some french writer, but then again i may be biased - offered his apologies for his "writing" as he could have been more concise but did not have time. there is truth in that. the more concise one needs to be, the more time one needs to have. therein lies the twitter conundrum. as the juxtaposition of the 140 character limit and the "firehose" flavor of the platform make for a very difficult "squaring" of the circle. i suspect more platforms/technologies/solutions will hit us and hit at thousands and thousands of years of evolutjon as it relates to how our brain functions.</p><p>twitter et al is/are (not sure of the grammar here) changing our brain plasticity, whether we like it or not.</p>pascal bouvierSun, 04 Jan 2009 21:12:14 -0000