Send to KindleI’ve been using Twitter for a very long time (thanks Jamie, even though you deserted us for a while). 😉
I have had it set to IM me (via Jabber) whenever anyone tweets, and forever, that was working. A while ago (quite a while ago), those messages stopped coming. I was able to send tweets via IM, but I never got an update for someone else any longer.
On time, also a long time ago, I turned off the IM channel, then turned it back on, and for a short while (days?) I received tweets via IM again, then they stopped.
Recently, I installed Twhirl (an Adobe AIR fat client for Twitter) so I didn’t care. Then I installed (same day) AlertThingy (also an AIR client). AlertThingy (at first) only attached to FriendFeed stuff, so I still had to launch Twhirl in order to see tweets from people that I am not also a FriendFeed subscriber of. Ugh.
A recent update of AlertThingy (or I missed it originally!) now also includes full Twitter integration, so I no longer have to launch Twhirl.
Anyway, none of that has to do with the title of this post. 😉
This morning, I noticed that two of the people that I follow both tweeted that they have seen a big jump in followers. Having nothing to do with that (but having it lodged somewhere in my brain), I logged on to twitter.com for the first time in a very long while.
I accidentally noticed a tiny link on the bottom right hand corner showing 14 new requests to be followed. That was quite surprising. Who knew how long they’ve been sitting there?
So, out of the 14 requests, I knew eight of those people (and approved all of them right away). A ninth person is someone I don’t personally know (or at least I don’t think I do), but he’s a good buddy of two people I do know, so I happily accepted him as well.
That left five strangers. Of them, one seemed to have a very interesting business take in her tweets, so I accepted her. Two seemed to be following over 50K (yes, thousand!) people, so I can safely assume that I’m not all that special to them, and I declined them. The other two I just haven’t decided yet, and I’m letting them sit.
So, I’ve gone from four followers to 14 followers, in a five minute span. Nothing like the one buddy who tweeted this morning that he’s up to 1000 followers!
That said, I keep my tweets private, as I do for my FriendFeed as well. I’m honestly not sure why I do. Everything that I tweet about is personal (no big business secrets to worry about spilling to the world). After the fact, I often blog about what I tweeted about in advance. In other word, my tweets are often “Going to a concert”, followed the next morning by a blog about the concert.
Clearly, the blog is available for all to see, forever, so why not just open up the tweets as well? I don’t know, but since I have zero need/desire for a complete stranger to know (or care) about what I’m about to do, it just makes sense to me.
The blog side is different. I am shocked (and pleased) as to how many people find my posts via normal searches, and I know (hopefully they would agree!) that often my post has answered their exact question (if they have the patience to read my long-windedness). 😉
If any of you have strong opinions as to the benefits of opening up my tweets and/or FriendFeed, please feel free to weigh in here.
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