Besieged by random followers on Twitter
There's one thing I find really annoying about Twitter; it's those random followers that latch on to you just after you have posted an update. This was actually quite exciting at first until I realised what was going on. Say hello to Twitter-spam!
Twitter, for the uninitiated is a kind of messaging tool that allows family members or colleagues to stay in touch though simple status updates. It's simplicity is perhaps it's biggest appeal. With messages up to 140 characters and a very straightforward system of following the people you want to keep up to date with, it should be straight forward and hassle free. Sadly though, Twitter is still susceptible to usual forms of abuse and annoyances that have plagued Internet services for years.
That wonderfully useful communication tool suddenly becomes annoying.
Perhaps this is to be expected when something becomes popular. As with the notorious and somewhat over hyped Facebook, as soon as word gets out about something new, suddenly everyone wants piece of the action. Before you know it, it's imperative that every business out there must have a Twitter account so that they can 'keep their customers informed' of their new products and services. Well that's all very well. It's good that people find this new thing useful, but then a few crafty individuals start thinking 'how can I make some money with this' and before you know it, some genius has just created a new thing called 'Twitter Spam'. That wonderfully useful communication tool suddenly becomes annoying.
Back to those random followers (read spammers). They're easy enough to spot because they're following thousands of people and they either have very few updates (tweets), or all their updates are from API. In other words those tweets have probably generated automatically from a database or application. Why would I be interested in something like that? I could of course prevent my updates going on to the public time line, but there again sometimes real and interesting people follow and I'm interested enough to follow back. I could ignore them but I usually end up just blocking them straight away.
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Twitter is fine for getting news of offers and events from companies and real world places, not sure about the "social" aspects.
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Have to say that Facebook is far more useful and it is not just for saddos as the poster below suggests. It helps people share their pics easily and communicate what that are doing or thinking en masse (to a chosen audience that they control). You can also invite people to events etc. Generally it works best if you invite genuine family and friends and not a load of hangers on! The games are irritating when you see all the updates in the ‘homepage’ field as they waste time and space of non-gamers. Each to their own though.
I do think the love or hate it attitude or the trendy brigade when it comes to I.T is sad. Use it for what it is designed for, pick and choose intelligently and be discriminating with who you allow access.
Golden rule is – if you wouldn’t invite them into your home then don’t let them into your private cyber world!
As for spammers etc. they will always ruin the experience for the genuine people. Much the same in the real world with irritating people!
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Tweety Birrddd - 24-Oct-09 20:48
I'm no prude and each to their own, but FFS get off thinking Twitter is some godsend that gives you some kind of kudos. To many of us it only demonstrates that you're a needy little jerk.
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If twitter is open to anyone then it's fairly obvious that it will be abused by people trying to make money. It's the equivalent of trying to have a personal conversation with someone by shouting across a crowded room!
grumpyoldwoman
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