I never understood the appeal of writing blurbs that use 140 characters and spaces (or less). The rest of the world disagrees with me as I found out recently by shoulder surfing someone near and dear who tweets. For the uninitiated, "tweeting" is what the folks using Twitter do. And "tweets" is what they write.
What I haven't found is folks detailing the minutiae of their mundane lives. What I did find was a lot of news bullets from Al Jazeera, the F.B.I., and AnonOps. Some notable personalities hold court at Twitter as well: The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Penn of Penn and Teller, P.Z. Myers, and Jesus With Issues. There are rather interesting exchanges between Team Jesus and Team Atheist, little bites from President Obama and Connie Rice (or their press agents), and a bunch of "women" whose sole purpose is to get you to click on a link to porn videos. The latter are rather annoying. First they follow all new folks. Some new folks will follow them back, not realizing their game. Pretty soon, they post a link to a vid that they "just made." The Twitter interface does have the option for a tweeter to block someone. But the naughty women arrive in droves. As soon as one account is suspended, at least five more sign up.
The Twitter interface is a bit jarring at first. There is the difficulty of finding any direct messages to the tweeter and then there is the difficulty of finding out how to throw the messages into the trash. Twitter uses @ in front of the two syllable names of the users (with no demand for something that resembles a name). The new tweeter is then transported to a page where they can agree or decline to import their entire address book from their e-mail client in order to find known people in the mob. The other way to find folks to follow is to type in an interest using hash marks. Thus one can search for #news, #anon, #anonops, #occupy, #science, #evolution...and so on. A successful search of a #interest will yield the top twenty five tweets of that interest. To follow one of the tweeters, one clicks on their tiny icon and is presented with the last three tweets. The option exists to see more of their tweets. To block a tweeter, such as the spamming video ladies, one selects "block @so-and-so" from the drop down menu. Icons across the top of the page denote one's profile page, one's usually non-working mailbox, and "write a new tweet."
Twitter is a gift for folks with short attention spans. The A.D.D. or A.D.H.D. adult can gleam a decent idea of today's current events and click on the shortened links, embedded U-tube vids, and pictures to find out more. The feed runs rapidly enough and times flies even for the most mercurial. Over each tweet are options to reply or re-tweet. Re-tweeting is like sharing on Google+: it's what one does if one wants to spread the word to one's own followers. A tweeter also has the option to "favorite" a tweet. The tweet is then stored in the "favorites" section of the profile.
And yes folks, the anons and the feds have all moved to twitter. It is easier there to sign up as an organization and there is no silly demand for your wallet name or for a name that resembles wallet names. Unfortunately, Twitter-- like so many other services these days-- has yielded to self-censorship in order to aid governments that censor. If something is not allowed to be viewed in one's host country, one is now made aware of blocked tweets. The oldies at Twitter complain about the interface changing. I can't speak to that as I have only shoulder surfed one relatively new user. Twitter does work if one is behind a proxy. And unlike G+, many of the tweeters actually do care about those activists who are not allowed Internet access in the traditional manner. G+ users will say, "Oh but this platform is not written with those people in mind." Tweeters have a hashed interest for using Tor to help folks behind the aluminum curtain.
sapphoq reviews says: As long as the radicals remember that the Feds and other watchers are also on Twitter, Twitter can be a useful and somewhat enjoyable tool for keeping up with the news and having some pithy discussions. Worth a look for those who are curious. Just don't forget to check on your followers periodically and block all the sexpot ladies.
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