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Archive for the ‘Policy statements’ Category


Why I follow who I follow

In Policy statements on August 15, 2009 at 11:42 pm

I’ve decided to document a massively helpful change I recently made to the way I use Twitter. I don’t know how interesting or useful this will be to other people, but I hope it’s both.

In order to keep Twitter useful and manageable, and because there are quite a few people whose tweets I don’t want to miss, I recently halved the number of people I follow. My experience of Twitter changed dramatically, and for the better.*

But a couple of friends, including someone I’ve known for ten years, have written to me since, asking why I’m not following them any more. “Because you add no value to my stream,” I’ve replied.

Harsh, perhaps. But it’s true: just because you adore or admire someone doesn’t mean you should automatically follow them. Because Twitter’s not Facebook. Some of the people I follow online I’m not friends with in real life (and, in some cases, wouldn’t want to be). Some of the people I can’t get enough of in real life are mind-numbingly boring on Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

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A retweet is just a retweet (unless I say otherwise)

In Announcements, Policy statements on August 12, 2009 at 11:30 pm

Now look here. We need to have a word about this retweet business. There are two things you should know:

  1. Retweeting should not be read as endorsement or agreement.
  2. Retweeting means you want others to see whatever it is you’re retweeting. That is all.

All I intend when I RT something is for my followers to see it too. That might be because it’s brilliant, but it’s just as likely that I’m taking the piss out of the original tweeter and want to expose them to wider ridicule, à la TweetingTooHard. Because that’s how I am. Read the rest of this entry »