Ask YC: Whats your Twitter handle?

edw519 · on March 25, 2008

I'm at the "I don't get what twitter is all about nor do I care" phase. What was it about twitter that got you hooked?

manvsmachine · on March 25, 2008

I was really skeptical as well; in fact I've only had an account for 2 or 3 days now. Part of the appeal is similar to that of HN. For the most part, it's still mainly used by the early adopter, tech-savvy crowd. And, from what I've observed, the brevity of the messages actually seems to encourage dialogue: people are a lot more willing to to say something to you or read something you send them if they know it only involves a couple of sentences.

xekonic · on March 25, 2008

The hooking element is really based on intermittent variable reward. eg: when someone responds, direct messages you, etc. you can't really predict it.

Twitter's kind of like a message board that, instead of filtering by categories or topics, you filter by people. So you can also imagine, the more people you find interesting or to interact with, the more addicting it becomes.

@NathanSnell

andrewparker · on March 25, 2008

The hook is the serendipity the service creates in your life.

jamesbritt · on March 25, 2008

"The hook is the serendipity the service creates in your life."

Could you give some detail?

Doesn't Twitter demand at least some time and attention? From what I've seen, most of what shoots past is astonishing in its lack of content and value.

So, while some posts may be useful, I don't see that the results justify the attention required.

Is there some preferred way to avoid the drivel and catch only the good stuff?

andrewparker · on March 26, 2008

Sure, the big moments of serendipity for me are the ones tied to geographic proximity. When a friend says they're hitting the Shake Shack ( http://shakeshack.com ) in 15 minutes, I can show up and join them, or vice versa. I don't want to email or IM all my friends everytime I'm going somewhere, but if I Twitter the message, I know I'm spreading the word without spamming people.

slim · on March 25, 2008

yes. follow only interesting people.

here is the workflow : 1- create a twitter account 2- find people you already know on twitter and follow them (try googling their name + twitter) 3- setup alerts on topics you like (hint : setup an alert for your geographic area) 4- manage people you follow : if somebody sucks, unfollow him. if your receive an alert, follow the user who sent the twit for some time and decide later if you want keep following him.

after some time (about six months) you'll find only interesting topics on your twitter feed.

wallflower · on March 25, 2008

Can this be automated? I love Techmeme. A system for surfacing new conversations from interesting twitter users. I assume twitter pied pipers like Scobleizer would need to be weighted (downwards). Kind of a TechMeme for twitter. Has anyone done this yet?

slim · on March 25, 2008

go to http://twitter.com/public_timeline. see "featured"? choose one (i suggest @zefrank). then click the "With others" tab. thus you see @zefrank and the people he is actualy following twits.

this is techmeme the twitter way.