The different ways people use Twitter
Dave discusses the different ways people use Twitter, noting that everyone has a different experience based on who they follow and who follows them. He explains that the “@” symbol is used to address a tweet to someone who doesn’t follow you, allowing you to have a conversation with them. Weiner also talks about the ratio of followers to people followed, with some users having a very high ratio of followers to those they follow. Dave suggests this could be an interesting way to rank people on Twitter. Dave then plays a song by the Grateful Dead to end his podcast for the year.
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Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated.
Hello everybody, this is Dave
Winer and
Coming to you from Berkeley,
California, and it is the 31st
of December 2007. This will
almost certainly be
My last podcast of the year
2007 and I apologize for not
doing more podcasts
We really see what we can do
about that and I will blame
Lake Lemieux for the
French accent that creeps in
there because I am
feeling so
associated the talking into a
microphone is a
It’s a very French experience
for me anyway back to America
Dave Sifry asked a question on
Twitter last night and
I thought that and I thought I
would try to write a tutorial
about
An answer to the question and
then as I started writing it
I realized that it’s so much
more complicated than I thought
it was going to be so I thought
it would be better for me
Just to try to do it verbally,
and I think that it would make
more sense to so the question
was what does the at-sign mean
in Twitter and
It’s a very good question, so I
’m going to try to answer that
So as you know the basic
concept of Twitter is
There are the people that you
follow and then there are the
people that follow you so
following is a big
Part of what Twitter is and it
’s very much like subscribing to
an RSS feed
so that the little stream of tw
its that I put out think of that
as being a blog the equivalent
of a web blog and
And that following me is like
subscribing to my blog and
And then so what you see in the
in the screen when you if you
use the web interface like I do
what you see there is
What I would see if I used a
river of news aggregator
Is a reverse chronological list
of all of the recent?
Posts by people who I follow
Okay, so that’s actually there
’s only really one way to say
that let me say it again
What you see is a reverse chron
ological list of the recent tw
its or posts or
Whatever you want to call them
of the people that I follow
so and
when they look at their
If they come in through the web
interface, they will see their
people the people that they
follow and
So you can see right off the
bat that everybody’s having a
different experience with
Twitter
And this is something that dawn
ed on me a number of months ago
that
And it it sounds kind of
obvious, but
The implications of it are not
necessarily very obvious until
you actually think about it
I went looking around to see
what kind of a ratio
People have and I’m always
looking at this to see
the number ratio of followers
to
People that you follow and so
for me I try to keep it at
around 10% I try to follow 10%
of
The people who follow me that’s
because I learned very early on
that
Popularity or we’re a lot of
readership. It’s not exactly
the same thing as popularity
But a lot of readership of a
blog almost immediately
translates into
lots of followers
over on Twitter, especially if
If you talk about Twitter on
your blog and link to your
account
That when I started doing that
on scripting news, I got a
flood of
subscribers of followers over
on Twitter
And so and I think that a lot
of the people who use Twitter
today are bloggers or
You know, but this goes back to
what I’m my theme of what I’m
going to talk about
Which is like how everybody’s
view of Twitter is different.
Everybody sees something different when they look at Twitter I think that it’s a lot of people who blog but I could imagine that a whole nother somebody from a completely different place would sit might say that Yes, most of the people on Twitter are from Bolivia Because from there maybe most of the people that they see maybe Twitter is very popular in Bolivia I probably wouldn’t know if it were because These little networks that develop. I don’t think there are a lot of intersections. I Don’t think that there are a lot. I mean I You would never find out what other networks people belong to Unless they mentioned it the networks don’t have names. So it would be hard for them to even talk about it So for me from my point of view , it looks like it’s mostly blog gers. Maybe it is maybe it isn’t I would have no way of knowing So, okay, so that’s hopefully Yeah, so other people have different ratios Here let me go look at some of the people. So here’s new media gem Who’s a really interesting guy? I recommend following him and he is following 1932 people which is actually a lot and get this his followers are 1926 so the difference is only six and With that many of them, it’s kind of my guess is that there ’s that’s no coincidence I don’t know. We’d have to ask him By the way, that’s also when I mentioned somebody and his his account is new media gem Exactly the way you would expect it to be spelled That will likely get him some subscribers. So just mentioning somebody Actually is a very nice thing.
It’s like linking to somebody from a blog but since subscribing is so much simpler That’s another thing about Twitter Subscribing is easier than it is with RSS feeds. I wish it weren’t so But it’s true. I mean, I’m glad that it’s easy. I wish it were easier for our SS feeds So let’s take somebody else.
Okay, Chris Brogan Chris My guess would be Chris is probably his ratio It’s hard to say but I would guess his ratio is probably more like mine Nope not true He is following 2600 and six people which is a lot and he is being followed by 239 so it’s not quite as close as new media gyms, but yet he is subscribing to a lot of people Let’s see. Let’s pick somebody Doug Meacham D O U G M E A C H A M. Let’s see what he does So he’s got okay Another one who’s just about the same he follows Um, he follows 238 and he’s being followed by 288, but I’m looking for somebody who’s got a totally flipped around Let’s try Bloated lesbian That’s madge uh, Weinstein He says, uh, you know, he’s not really The long story because she’s not really a bloated lesbian, but she plays one on the web Or he plays one on the web Okay, 276 following Uh bloated lesbian. I am one of those and is being That’s right. He is following 276 And he is being followed by 274 So very much the same number very close I tend to think that when I see that that that’s somebody who automatically subscribes to anybody who subscribes to them Um, so that’s how that that may be. I know like scoble does that scoble has just he’s sco ble iser Let’s try steve garfield. See what his ratio is Uh, yeah about the same again.
He’s following 784 followers 968 Let me try refreshing I’m gonna have to give this up pretty soon Uh, let’s try micola m i c k e l e h And that’s actually michael markman. Now again following 13 3 followers 162. That’s pretty close How about jeff sandquist he works He’s jeff sand. Oh, okay. Here we go. He’s following 346 people and he’s being followed by 265. So jeff is kind of like uh an a minus list guy He’s got a high right now me now. This is an a list guy here Uh, if I do say so myself I am following 344 people which I feel is a lot of people to be following It’s hard for me to keep up, but I’m being followed by 3,877 people right And then I’ve seen okay now get this I’ve seen somebody I don’t want to say who it is because This might not make them popular Um, who is being followed by thousands of people but follows nobody Yeah, that’s a very very very unique Twitter experience don’t you think? T david No, 762 751. All right. Well, that would be an interesting little experiment to To another one of those sort of twitter holic type things to just sort of Rank people based on their ratios Um, you know, how much of a how arrogant are you? How a list are you? Okay, which would be you know the number of people following you over The number of people you follow Okay, that would be an interesting number to look at but now understand that people who Let’s say you have somebody who ’s being followed by 15 people But follows 100 people That would be somebody who sees a lot going on but very few people listen to them Whatever relatively few people listen to them um Okay, so Now on to what does the ad sign do? Okay, the ad sign is a way for you to address a A twitter post to somebody who does not follow you Okay Think about that. All right. So now if I’m not following Here, let’s go see if I have any now. How do you see those since you’re not following them ? They don’t show up in your main list. Well, okay, no problem Click on the replies tab if you look if you look at near the top of the web interface You’ve got the it says, uh, what are you doing and then there’s the box and then there ’s the update button And then underneath that are three tabs archive replies and recent recent is what you usually see Uh, I don’t give I don’t care what archive is replies though is what we’re looking at now Okay, so now I’ve got a bunch of replies, okay Diz pod dur d-i-z-p-o-d-d-i-r says at sign dave weiner d-a-v-e-w-i -n-e-r w I can’t even spell my own name d-a-v-e-w-i-n-e-r At sign dave weiner. I can’t wait for the windows version of flickerfan I have several flicker feeds. I ’ve subscribed to and would love to use them in it. Well, you won’t be waiting very much longer Trust me on that It’s a very very common feature request. I want to get it out.
But first I want to get the mac users stabilized So let’s see what and so now this pod dur is somebody that I don’t follow I don’t subscribe to this person But now I’ve read something that they posted because they they put the at sign Dave weiner, which is my handle and put it at the beginning of their Post their twitter post and therefore it will show up in this list um of people who have directed messages to me When and that includes people who I do follow like there’s one in there from c shotten Who I’d follow and he says at d ave weiner Hmm. I think that might be a worthy hack to get their rss sample widget. I’ll get started smiling So that’s a conversation that we’re having it’s been going on for a few hours Um And it makes sense. You know, he’s told me it’s directed to me It’s also part of the language of twitter. I want to go back and see diz pod dur now Uh, sending me a respectful Here we go. He’s following Um, oh, this is the disney podcast director. Okay, this is I Uh, my goodness. I was gonna subscribe to this person anyway , but of course I will now Um, if that is really what they do Uh, it doesn’t have the person ’s name But he or she is following 239 and has 191 followers So this is somebody who’s probably pretty new to twitter Uh, I suspect that if this is really the director of podcasts at disney Not a lot. Yep. Not a lot more people will be following them or direct directory The disney podcast directory It might not be a person It’s just married father of two disney podcast attic This might not be somebody who works at disney and the site that they have is www. disneypodcastdirectory. net And I’m looking at that right now Interesting Don’t know Don’t know what exactly I’m looking at, but it looks pretty interesting Anyway, so I’m going to follow dis dis pod dur That is a very good way to get me to follow you is in other words be part of My little world show me that you’re you’re interested in what I’m doing and I’ll likely reciprocate and Follow you Now I don’t necessarily have to follow you forever when I do follow you though You’ll probably get an email about that which I think is okay. It’s good It’s interesting however though that you will not get an email if I stop following you Or if you stop following me So if you get mad at somebody and you don’t want to read what they’ve said anymore you can go away Very quietly. I just sort of lurk, you know Fall away and then nobody needs to know anything about it. But when you follow them, that’s announced Everybody gets to hear that so I don’t know so It’s like the defaults of a piece of software It it determines the culture You know the way they set this up. So I don’t know does that explain what at sign does I think that’s just about it. I know that and there probably are some other things going on there Kind of confused about it, but that’s how I use at sign. That ’s what I think that they do If you have any comments on that come to scripting. com and I will post this there And there’ll be a place to comment. So if there’s more information about what at signs do then please buy all means in lightness So I guess That’s my tutorial, but I’m going to do Right you must know if you’ve been reading scripting news you have a pretty good idea of what song is coming on max Here we go Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh So Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh 60 days Thank you everybody, that’s the pride of kukamanga the grateful dead philis singing and it’s a beautiful song for a beautiful End of the year podcast. So thanks everybody. Talk to you soon So Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
Everybody sees something different when they look at Twitter I think that it’s a lot of people who blog but I could imagine that a whole nother somebody from a completely different place would sit might say that Yes, most of the people on Twitter are from Bolivia Because from there maybe most of the people that they see maybe Twitter is very popular in Bolivia I probably wouldn’t know if it were because These little networks that develop. I don’t think there are a lot of intersections. I Don’t think that there are a lot. I mean I You would never find out what other networks people belong to Unless they mentioned it the networks don’t have names. So it would be hard for them to even talk about it So for me from my point of view , it looks like it’s mostly blog gers. Maybe it is maybe it isn’t I would have no way of knowing So, okay, so that’s hopefully Yeah, so other people have different ratios Here let me go look at some of the people. So here’s new media gem Who’s a really interesting guy? I recommend following him and he is following 1932 people which is actually a lot and get this his followers are 1926 so the difference is only six and With that many of them, it’s kind of my guess is that there ’s that’s no coincidence I don’t know. We’d have to ask him By the way, that’s also when I mentioned somebody and his his account is new media gem Exactly the way you would expect it to be spelled That will likely get him some subscribers. So just mentioning somebody Actually is a very nice thing.
It’s like linking to somebody from a blog but since subscribing is so much simpler That’s another thing about Twitter Subscribing is easier than it is with RSS feeds. I wish it weren’t so But it’s true. I mean, I’m glad that it’s easy. I wish it were easier for our SS feeds So let’s take somebody else.
Okay, Chris Brogan Chris My guess would be Chris is probably his ratio It’s hard to say but I would guess his ratio is probably more like mine Nope not true He is following 2600 and six people which is a lot and he is being followed by 239 so it’s not quite as close as new media gyms, but yet he is subscribing to a lot of people Let’s see. Let’s pick somebody Doug Meacham D O U G M E A C H A M. Let’s see what he does So he’s got okay Another one who’s just about the same he follows Um, he follows 238 and he’s being followed by 288, but I’m looking for somebody who’s got a totally flipped around Let’s try Bloated lesbian That’s madge uh, Weinstein He says, uh, you know, he’s not really The long story because she’s not really a bloated lesbian, but she plays one on the web Or he plays one on the web Okay, 276 following Uh bloated lesbian. I am one of those and is being That’s right. He is following 276 And he is being followed by 274 So very much the same number very close I tend to think that when I see that that that’s somebody who automatically subscribes to anybody who subscribes to them Um, so that’s how that that may be. I know like scoble does that scoble has just he’s sco ble iser Let’s try steve garfield. See what his ratio is Uh, yeah about the same again.
He’s following 784 followers 968 Let me try refreshing I’m gonna have to give this up pretty soon Uh, let’s try micola m i c k e l e h And that’s actually michael markman. Now again following 13 3 followers 162. That’s pretty close How about jeff sandquist he works He’s jeff sand. Oh, okay. Here we go. He’s following 346 people and he’s being followed by 265. So jeff is kind of like uh an a minus list guy He’s got a high right now me now. This is an a list guy here Uh, if I do say so myself I am following 344 people which I feel is a lot of people to be following It’s hard for me to keep up, but I’m being followed by 3,877 people right And then I’ve seen okay now get this I’ve seen somebody I don’t want to say who it is because This might not make them popular Um, who is being followed by thousands of people but follows nobody Yeah, that’s a very very very unique Twitter experience don’t you think? T david No, 762 751. All right. Well, that would be an interesting little experiment to To another one of those sort of twitter holic type things to just sort of Rank people based on their ratios Um, you know, how much of a how arrogant are you? How a list are you? Okay, which would be you know the number of people following you over The number of people you follow Okay, that would be an interesting number to look at but now understand that people who Let’s say you have somebody who ’s being followed by 15 people But follows 100 people That would be somebody who sees a lot going on but very few people listen to them Whatever relatively few people listen to them um Okay, so Now on to what does the ad sign do? Okay, the ad sign is a way for you to address a A twitter post to somebody who does not follow you Okay Think about that. All right. So now if I’m not following Here, let’s go see if I have any now. How do you see those since you’re not following them ? They don’t show up in your main list. Well, okay, no problem Click on the replies tab if you look if you look at near the top of the web interface You’ve got the it says, uh, what are you doing and then there’s the box and then there ’s the update button And then underneath that are three tabs archive replies and recent recent is what you usually see Uh, I don’t give I don’t care what archive is replies though is what we’re looking at now Okay, so now I’ve got a bunch of replies, okay Diz pod dur d-i-z-p-o-d-d-i-r says at sign dave weiner d-a-v-e-w-i -n-e-r w I can’t even spell my own name d-a-v-e-w-i-n-e-r At sign dave weiner. I can’t wait for the windows version of flickerfan I have several flicker feeds. I ’ve subscribed to and would love to use them in it. Well, you won’t be waiting very much longer Trust me on that It’s a very very common feature request. I want to get it out.
But first I want to get the mac users stabilized So let’s see what and so now this pod dur is somebody that I don’t follow I don’t subscribe to this person But now I’ve read something that they posted because they they put the at sign Dave weiner, which is my handle and put it at the beginning of their Post their twitter post and therefore it will show up in this list um of people who have directed messages to me When and that includes people who I do follow like there’s one in there from c shotten Who I’d follow and he says at d ave weiner Hmm. I think that might be a worthy hack to get their rss sample widget. I’ll get started smiling So that’s a conversation that we’re having it’s been going on for a few hours Um And it makes sense. You know, he’s told me it’s directed to me It’s also part of the language of twitter. I want to go back and see diz pod dur now Uh, sending me a respectful Here we go. He’s following Um, oh, this is the disney podcast director. Okay, this is I Uh, my goodness. I was gonna subscribe to this person anyway , but of course I will now Um, if that is really what they do Uh, it doesn’t have the person ’s name But he or she is following 239 and has 191 followers So this is somebody who’s probably pretty new to twitter Uh, I suspect that if this is really the director of podcasts at disney Not a lot. Yep. Not a lot more people will be following them or direct directory The disney podcast directory It might not be a person It’s just married father of two disney podcast attic This might not be somebody who works at disney and the site that they have is www. disneypodcastdirectory. net And I’m looking at that right now Interesting Don’t know Don’t know what exactly I’m looking at, but it looks pretty interesting Anyway, so I’m going to follow dis dis pod dur That is a very good way to get me to follow you is in other words be part of My little world show me that you’re you’re interested in what I’m doing and I’ll likely reciprocate and Follow you Now I don’t necessarily have to follow you forever when I do follow you though You’ll probably get an email about that which I think is okay. It’s good It’s interesting however though that you will not get an email if I stop following you Or if you stop following me So if you get mad at somebody and you don’t want to read what they’ve said anymore you can go away Very quietly. I just sort of lurk, you know Fall away and then nobody needs to know anything about it. But when you follow them, that’s announced Everybody gets to hear that so I don’t know so It’s like the defaults of a piece of software It it determines the culture You know the way they set this up. So I don’t know does that explain what at sign does I think that’s just about it. I know that and there probably are some other things going on there Kind of confused about it, but that’s how I use at sign. That ’s what I think that they do If you have any comments on that come to scripting. com and I will post this there And there’ll be a place to comment. So if there’s more information about what at signs do then please buy all means in lightness So I guess That’s my tutorial, but I’m going to do Right you must know if you’ve been reading scripting news you have a pretty good idea of what song is coming on max Here we go Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh So Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh 60 days Thank you everybody, that’s the pride of kukamanga the grateful dead philis singing and it’s a beautiful song for a beautiful End of the year podcast. So thanks everybody. Talk to you soon So Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh (upbeat music) (upbeat music)