Breaking My Own Rules...
Saturday, November 28, 2009 at 12:50PM One of the problems with Twitter is that it's a very transient data stream. By that I mean that unless you're logged in and monitoring the stream, things can pass you by very easily. Add in the fact that it's real time and global...
I've established that most of my Twitter followers like the fact that I publish links to the content I produce. I think it's fair to say also, that a lot of people are starting to become more reliant on Twitter instead of RSS feeds, I know I am.
The problem is that if I post a link now, here in the UK (like I just did re my Pixelmator clips on YouTube a short while ago) it gets seen by my UK peeps (logged on to Twitter anyway) but for other timezones it's not really a time when parts of the world are likely to be monitoring twitter i.e.
Los Angeles - 5:00AM, Saturday
Milwaukee - 7:00AM, Saturday
New York - 8:00AM, Saturday
London - 1:00PM, Saturday
Perth - 9:00PM, Saturday
Hobart - 12:00AM, Sunday
The last two were for Jane and Rose :-)
OK, so my content isn't of any major importance or significance, but I'd still like to make sure that my twitter followers, who might be interested in this stuff, at least get a chance to receive the link at a reasonable time when they might actually be able to use it!
So I've decided to go against one of my original Twitter rules and use an automated Tweet!!!
Shock horror!!!
Ok, so there are no Twitter rules but I don't like the abuse of automated tweets. You know, like when someone fills up a tool with various random statement or links that you just know they are not actually sending out live. I absolutely hate that!
What I'm proposing is just to duplicate the very few tweets I send out with links to my own stuff, at times when people in other timezones might actually receive them in real time, and have a chance to catch the links.
Reasonable?
In order to prevent too much irritation, I'll send them out with the hashtag #sco_repost that way, you can filter them out if necessary.
How would this work then?
Well, if I send out a reposted tweet at 7pm UK time, most of the UK peeps who monitor Twitter during the day will miss it but the US peeps will see it in their Twitter stream at:
Los Angeles - 11:00AM
Milwaukee - 1:00PM
New York - 2:00PM
London - 7:00PM
Then if I resend it at 3:00am UK time, the UK and US peeps will miss it but Jane and Rose (OK, and anyone else in Aus) will receive them at:
London - 3:00AM, Sunday
Perth - 11:00AM, Sunday
Hobart - 2:00PM, Sunday
As I said, this will only be for Tweets with links in to my stuff and they will be tagged with #sco_repost.
If it hasn't got #sco_repost, it's a live tweet and it's me sending it in real time - honest!
Works for you?
:-)
Reader Comments (19)
I think this is a very reasonable approach Don, I for one would find this approach beneficial.
Keep up the good work.
PS. Enjoyed first Snow Leopard Server screencast !
Don't mind at all Don,
I don't know about the difference in followers between your personal account and the ScreenCastsOnline account but would a option be to use the ScreenCastsOnline account for the automated posts?
Thanks Guys - There's quite a big difference! 5000+ for the personal account 400 for the sconline account :-)
Hmm. Two questions, Don.
1) How big of a deal is missing stuff in the history of the stream? I tend to fire up my Twitter client of a morning, and read EVERYTHING I missed overnight - so if I was in a different time zone I would still see the original post. Am I weird in doing that? I personally don't see the point of microblogging if you only look at what is being said at just the moment. Are there any industry stats on that?
2) The downside of my personal approach is that I am going to see the same link repeatedly. No real biggie for me, but you mention filtering it out - but I can't see an easy way to do that in Tweetie or on the Twitter website. Am I missing something obvious?
As always, your dialogue with your audience is an exemplary model, Don. Keep it up!
But those 400 are likely to be the ones who would not want to miss out on the updates.
I'm not sure it's a big thing that people are asleep when you post. I would think most people, with real jobs and the like, use Twitter a bit like an email inbox. So when I'm at work I might check Twitter every hour and read all the tweets that have been made since I last logged in. And the same when I wake up in the morning. I doubt people just go to twitter and only read what flashes up in real time while they're logged in.
My view is that reposts would be a bad idea. Most people follow someone on twitter not to replace the RSS feed of content updates but to read supplementary thoughts and comments. If that starts to get diluted with three or four reposts every day that's going to get annoying, especially as the 'filter out' function is unknown to almost everyone.
I might be in the minority on this but they're my views anyway.
I do not mind the approach but so far I have been able to view all the tweets. I use TweetDeck amongst others (trying to determine the best) One of the great features of TweetDeck is that I can just click on your profile and it shows just your tweets. It is quite easy to scan to see if there is something important or enjoyable that I would like to investigate.
I still follow your RSS feed so I have you covered each way...
I agree. I don't think I would like reposts. Isn't that one of the reasons Twitter brought in lists so users can filter posts more easily.
I find this to be more of a problem. I read your early stuff, but 11am UK time, the US is waking up and by the time I get home my steam is very full. I tend to find one of your later posts, click on you in Tweetie so I can go back and find the link you sent earlier in the day at home.
I am finding Twitter more and more useful and am following far more people and companies than I ever thought I would. If the US companies were to do the same as you suggest my stream would just become fuller.
Best wishes
Michael
I can barely keep up with RSS feeds... who has time for Twitter?
Twitter is fine receiving info as I also scan through everything I missed while not viewing Tweetie. However, for items I really, really don't want to miss, I use RSS. I tend to think of RSS as a hardcopy of news items. Tweets are tidbits of info I may be interested in as they stream through the ether.
While I don't really object, I'm sure I will find it slightly annoying, as there will be duplicated tweets that dilute my stream, which I read all of.
Seems to me that you are trying to apply twitter to do something that we already have a very elegant solution for (RSS) and it's not going to handle it well due to the limitations imposed by the system. Personally, I love RSS because this is what it excels at, allowing someone to say 'here is new content' and I can get all the new content updates I've chosen to subscribe to in one place (my feed reader) when I am ready to do so.
I've seen a little of the trend for people to use twitter to announce in addition to their RSS feed, and while I can live with that, I really hope the trend doesn't take off, because I don't think it's something that twitter is suited for.
Don,
I have to agree with BobRudge. Twitter isn't mean to be a reliable deliver method. Unless you are sending DM's I guess. I have your blog in my RSS reader and I also subscribe to your YouTube feed via RSS. The whole point of RSS is that I can look and see whats new on my schedule.
@David... while you are not alone I think there is a large percentage of twitter users that don't read EVERY tweet of every person they follow. They couldn't possible. I know I don't.
That said, I would not have a problem if you do what you propose on the SCO twitter account vs your personal account. Because I can always just stop following the SCO account if it gets annoying. Then again, you don't want to get the reputation of a twitter spammer... which can happy very quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if twitter soon added a duplicate tweet blocker to prevent stuff like this from being posted.
Regards... BOb
Thanks for all the responses! Quite a mixed bunch but most coming down on the side of not doing this I fear.
However, all the comments to date have been in response to the initial tweet I sent out. It will be interesting to see what responses if any come back from the test resends I have set up for tonight.
The last thing I want to be seen as is a twitter spammer but let's just try this for a couple of days and see what happens.
Don't see a problem with this at all Don.
As I understand it you're suggesting a few automated tweets a day - I hardly think that qualifies as Twitter spam and you've clearly set out why you're doing this. It's not as if you're going to be bombarding us with random stuff constantly.
The people who have commented that it would be annoying are perhaps taking Twitter, or their own Twitter streams, too seriously. Just skip over Don's #sco_repost and move on to the next one. No biggie. If you follow hundreds of people it's up to you to manage that, not Don (though he is being helpful with the hashtag).
I say fill your boots Don.
Most people who are serious about Twitter use a client that won't miss any tweets, so I don't see any advantage in this tbh.
(Actually, I already get a bit annoyed by other people who retweet their own stuff that "I may have missed last night"-- er no, if I missed it last night, it's just because I'm not interested enough in what you're saying to make sure I don't miss any of your tweets...)
Saw one of the test ones today. Mildly pissed me off as it pointed me back to this blogpost that I had already read and didn't realise it was the same link. Afraid that could become a regular thing and i'd always be double checking to be sure if it's a link i'd seen before or not.
I’m afraid I’m not particularly a fan of this idea. The way I see it, if people miss tweets, then that is just an unfortunate side effect of the nature of Twitter. The way it works to me is that it’s a very dip-in, dip-out thing. Despite reading almost all the tweets that come into my timeline, I can appreciate many people will miss slices of tweets at different times when they are busy, for example, and again, that’s just ‘the way it is’ to me.
I’ll put on the Tweetie for Mac filter for now; the automated stuff won’t outweigh the utility and value of everything else you tweet for me (it’s not annoying enough for any unfollowing in other words!), but I can’t say I’m a fan of it, sorry.
WHy not different twitter feeds fro different times zones????
Bing!
Peth in a single line has come up with a brilliant suggestion! Why didn't I think of that.
I could create separate notification Twitter feeds for geographic regions so people could opt in to receive link tweets in real time and I could schedule these to appear.
Completely invisible to my normal feed!
Brilliant!
It's something that I've often thought about doing myself Don. Stuff that I tweet during the morning in Europe probably doesn't get seen in the US, so should I tweet it again? So far I've avoided doing it so far but you're right, for important stuff like getting your content links out there then it is perfectly justified.
Paul