How much is too much? I draw the line at Twitter

There's a lot of people round here getting very excited about Twitter. I'm not one of them, not yet anyway. For starters I'm too busy, this might sound silly given that posting to Twitter probably takes less than 30 seconds each time, but for me it's a channel too far. I write this blog, contribute to the Enhance Media blog as often as possible, use LinkedIn and occasionally Facebook and I struggle to keep up with all this already. I once foolishly agreed to write for a third blog, but gave up because I just didn't have the time. There are 100's of things I'd like to do on LinkedIn, but again don't have the time.

How many social networking / user generated content sites can any one person handle before updating them / writing becomes an obligation that takes over? There's a danger that all of a sudden it's the web driving the person and not the other way round. I keep getting loads of emails about Naymz and the other day an invitation from someone to link to them on Dopplr - a social networking tool for the frequent business traveler. I've signed up to Peter Gold's Talent Management network, but again, haven't found the time to do anything meaningful there. I can handle blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook, but draw the line at Twitter, Naymz, Dopplr etc.

I'm also not sure that Twitter is that exciting, I like and respect my fellow recruitment bloggers and enjoy reading their stuff about recruitment, but I've got no interest in which film they watch before they go to bed, what they think of their new trainers or whether it's raining or not when they go to the gym, it's just too much information. I read a couple of tweets the other day that said 'I'm getting on the plane' and then a couple of hours later 'I'm getting off the plane' - great! I also realise that this is slightly hypocritical as I often blog on here about Fulham, the weather etc, but for some reason I guess I think that is okay, whereas a constant update on what people are doing is too much.

I agree that following someone on Twitter can be compelling and addictive, but is this really interesting or is it just voyeuristic? I don't understand the compulsion to share everything you do with anyone who'll listen.

I also have no interest in who's writing the 10 Downing Street Twitter. I didn't care who wrote their press releases etc, I just assumed it was some bloke in PR and now they've moved to a more modern channel I still don't care.

I'm happy to be proved wrong on this, maybe no one's explained it properly to me yet or outlined the recruitment / business benefits. Maybe when they do I'll have that light bulb / eureka moment, but for now I'm still in the dark! Does that make me a twit?

Comments

[Alastair Cartwright]

OK, since we work together this isn't come as any great shock, but I agree with you entirely!

The key for me is the point you make is:

"There's a danger that all of a sudden it's the web driving the person and not the other way round"

I constantly have to remind myself that the most important business tool I own is the telephone. Yes! You can't beat actually talking to people.

Everything else falls into a number of different categories:

1. Useful business tool
2. Useful information / research portal
3. Interesting site with potential long term benefit
4. Fun and interesting, but ultimately irrelevant
5. What am I doing on here? Let's get back to work.

[dominic sumners]

Agree entirely, Twitter is a load of old toss isnt it???

thats my expert market analysis by the way

Cheers
Dom

[Matt]

Tim, Alastair and Dom = Grumpy Old Men

Maybe you should join Alex Hens back on Ceefax ;-)

Matt

[Julian Stopps]

Tim,

I have to disagree with you on this one. I’ve been using Twitter for about two weeks now and although the jury is still out, in my opinion it can provide real gems of information.

True it can be a complete waste of time, but only if you don’t pick the correct people to follow carefully. In the same way you pick which blogs to read based on quality, pick who you wish to follow based quality. If someone’s ratio of ‘informative tweets’ to ‘personal tweets’ doesn’t work for you, just stop following them. (Or if you want to get techy push your Twitter feed through something like Yahoo pipes and exclude anything with a specific term like ‘gym’ in it).

With a structured approach (which in my opinion is to visit Twitter at a couple of predefined times in the day and no more) it can be more like the first and second items on Alastair’s list and less like the forth and fifth.

As I said it’s still early days for Twitter and I, but don’t write it off yet. Go back, reselect who your following and restrict your visits to twice a day. It might make all of the difference.

[dominic sumners]

yes - i am increasingly aware of my personal bias - occasionally clouding my judgment about new products. Soon i will be talking about the youth of today not knowing they were born and that we need to re-introduce national service and the birch