Twitter Channels
Cheryl Johnson expressed a common complaint about Twitter... the noise:
Although I suggested "watching" the noise passively to get the full effect of the real estate conversation happening on Twitter, I also agree that it can be exhausting or time wasting tracking irrelevant conversations.I used to enjoy twitter conversations immensely. I backed off as it seemed more and more people were just "broadcasting" instead of "conversing". Kind of like being in a room with 55 radios all turned on each to a different station. :-0
I think the trick for me would be to go back in and "unfollow" a whole bunch of people to get back to a more managable conversational level.
TWITTER WILL EVOLVE INTO CHANNELS
Like Cheryl's 55 radio station analogy, Twitter will eventually evolve into channels - technology, finance, real estate, sports - here are some scenarios:
- Finance channels will cover breaking trader news faster than the news wires. Twitterers broadcast China's Chengdu earthquake last week before the news media; timely for traders who may want to sell Chinese ADRs of companies based there.
- Sports channels would naturally evolve down to the
team level. Lakers fans would congregate into these channels at game
time and live-Twitter the game just as they do now via a comment stream at Lakers blogs. Twitter through a live application like Twhirl is better because comment streams need to be refreshed to stay current (it's such a drag while watching a game).
- Real estate channels may be developed nationally or locally. MLS's might set up an automated listing/sold feed that may attract local commentary from Twittering agents and consumers.
Thanks to all who have connected with me recently on Twitter... if you're new, I'm assuming you have no idea what's happening because I notice your first Twitter posts are akin to:
I'm wondering what Twitter isJust take 30 minutes to follow all the real estate Twitterers and make your own judgment about how Twitter works. If you don't like it, log off and forget about the hour you spent analyzing Twitter. I'm betting you'll start seeing the possibilities.
One of my original complaints about twitter before I had ever used it was that I really didn't care that "Amy's" cat just woke up from a nap or "Tom's" knee is hurting him today..... channels make sense for a lot of reasons.... another filter that is already in place is not following people who don't contribute anything you feel is helpful.... I have never sent a tweet myself because I haven't had anything worthwhile to say...but I listen to others and learn from it.... ultimately, the only way to filter out the chit chat is to not follow those who generate noise....I have a feeling many other engage in the same strateg of simply listening to others.....
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This is already starting to some degree with the adoption of Hashtags. Though, not difficult to use, it is still not quite as easy as would be required for mass adoption. For example: RETech">http://www.hashtags.org/tag/retech/">RETech hashtag
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Great observation Gahlord...
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Twitter has amazing possibilities. I'm wondering if I "unfollow" someone, will they know? I'd love to clean up some chatter.
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Rhonda: Just do it! One of the biggest issues regarding twitter is noise.... so yank those people off ASAP with no apologies...... otherwise it can quickly become more of a liability then a useful tool.
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It's easy to drop junk Twitterers, but so far in the RE Twittersphere I really haven't seen anyone consistently slapping up junk. The noise doesn't bother me because surveying the Twitter stream is like speed reading, noise gets immediately lost.
Twitter also seems less personal than, say a blogroll, because of the greater mass of readers, but why would you want to unless the Twitterer is pure drivel? If the Twitterer is silent, there's no need to drop them, if the Twitterer is prolific, he/she may be a strong content contributor who is interesting or useful to track.
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I had no idea. Thanks for enlightening me, I will check it out.
Aloha,
Keahi
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Mahalo nui loa
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