My geeky friends won’t stop talking about this thing, and I do think there may be some cases where I’ll find it useful, so I’m going to start using Twitter. I think I’ll use it for moments when a blog entry is too broad or permanent, but I also don’t feel like bothering a group with an email. “Running late… can someone save a donut for me?” is what I expect my updates to be like.
One thing I’m confused about is how I should follow people. Until now, I’ve just been subscribing to RSS feeds of my friends’ Twitter updates. I have a different feed for each person, and it doesn’t expose my social network to the rest of the world, since the list of people I’m subscribed to isn’t public. But I notice that many people receive updates using the “follow” feature on Twitter, which then provides an aggregate feed of updates for anyone being followed. The big difference here is that anyone can then look at my “following” list to see who I’m reading. What is the advantage of using this? Should I do this?
I think this is similar to my problem with blogrolls.
I think for convenience (no copy/paste for new subscriptions) I’ll go ahead and start using the “Follow” feature. But please don’t be offended if you follow me and I don’t follow you. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like you. I’m just going to try and be very practical about how I use this. If it makes you feel any better, go ahead and tell yourself that I’m privately following you via RSS.
you’re following me! creepy
who are these random spammers and what to they want to get out of following me?
They probably want you to click on them out of curiosity or to see if you know them, and then follow whatever link they’re plugging.
oops.. i just deleted them. i wish there was a way to report such things.. maybe there is.