Home Phone and Internet $60/moExpanding the Twitter club for the rest of us
So there I was, watching the replay of Katie Couric's interview with Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin when a tweet flew by on my Twitter transom. Dan Gillmor was asking why the Democrats' Joe Biden didn't get equal grief for making dopey remarks. Among the Best of Joe-isms was his recent blooper confusing the timeline for FDR and the age of television.
Does she Twitter?
(Credit: State of Alaska)Well, I think I have an answer. But I've taken an oath to keep my big mouth shut for the remainder of the political season--at least on these pages. (If you want to bore yourself reading my election rants, you'll have to go up on Twitter.) But I was so keen to share my opinion with Dan that I immediately composed a ditty of a twitty and sent it off as a direct message. Not so fast, Twitter informed me; Dan was not "following" me.
Bummer. As much as I was sure that he might enjoy my 140-character pearls of wisdom, there was no way to engage in a private Twitter dialogue. I think I understand why Twitter maintains the padlock. Who wants every Tom, Dick, and Harry convinced you're a knucklehead sending private tweets to that effect? We already live with the unexpected consequences of unfettered access on e-mail. There's enough spam in the world, thank you. (A few days ago I saw what purports to be a hack that allows you to send direct messages to non-followers.)
Right now Twitter is populated by the cyber equivalent of gated communities. If you're not part of the club, you don't get to participate in the gabfest. A more general critique is that Twitter still makes it hard to find folks to follow. I can't follow what I don't know about. But that's fodder for another day. Right now on my wish list of future features, I'd love to see Twitter incorporate something akin to a "knock knock" button where you can still ping someone who is not your friend. It would be up to you whether to grant permission. The idea here being a more free-wheeling conversation that allows more people to participate. And isn't that supposed to be the point or am I missing something?
Charles is an executive editor with CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. A graduate of Queens College and Columbia University, Cooper began his career in journalism at the Associated Press before moving to technology coverage. Before joining CNET News, he worked at Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. He received the Excellence in Journalism award from the Northern California branch of the Society for Professional Journalists for column writing. In addition to his blogging and podcast appearances, he is a co-host of the CNET News Daily Debrief. E-mail Charlie.
1. Dan Gillmor makes a public statement that anyone can view.
2. You want to reply, but don't want it to be public.
3. You complain about it.
Sounds like the problem is with you and not Twitter.
You want Twitter to allow anyone to bug others with a request to follow them. So instead of email spam everyone will get "request to follow" spam on their Twitter accounts.
"I" want to choose who I want to follow. I don't want or need spam bots bugging the hell out of me with "can you follow me so I can send you direct messages?" requests. If you want someone to follow you then post content that people want to hear and the followers will come to you.
As for finding interesting content / people to follow try searching for keywords that interest you at http://search.twitter.com
Did you stop to think before you wrote this article? Does not look like it.
With people that aren't following you, you can take a stab at sending them a reply message with the @username . I get replies the majority of the time.
For a writer you don't seem to read very well.
What you fail to understand (even after you have been told time and time again) is that you can send a public message to anyone you want. But to send them a private and direct message they need to be following you. They get a message when you first choose to follow them, if they then want to receive private messages from you they can follow you back. If you want to bug the hell out of people then do it via email. We don't want you doing it on Twitter.
Instead of "d dangillmor Bla bla", write your tweet as "@dangillmor Bla bla". Then all who follow you will see the tweet, and Dan will likely see it too; depending on your Twitter tool, it's either dead easy or an outright default action that you see what anyone sends your way with an "at-tweet". On the web interface, it's the "@Replies" right under the "Home" link.
(I'm @JanKarlsbjerg on Twitter :-))