March 22, 2011 by findingbackroads

Why character assassination is less in Twitter

I can even say ‘it won’t exist’ and they would die a natural death, as compared to Facebook.

A friend of mine had a very tough time dealing with bullies in Facebook recently. She joined a contest and on that contest page, people are jumping in to accuse her of something she didn’t know, for all the world to see in an effort to disqualify her because she was the obvious winner (through honest means and effort).

Facebook is full of immature retards like that.

Malicious comments. Insults. Bullying. Is this even new on Facebook? Everything in Facebook gets hot easily and catches fire, before you know it, you are engaged in an online brawl, protecting your dignity and self pride, especially if you are using your real name and photo in your Facebook profile. You are on desperate call to save face, even if the rumors about you is untrue.

I have always been hesitant using Facebook and prefer Twitter. Maybe mostly because Twitter is less personal – I don’t need to see a string of photos or detailed profiles of people before I can exchange messages with them. Twitter keeps me up to date with events, it’s not about people all the time.

And there are less mean people on Twitter. (Depending on the people you follow, there are actually more intellectual stuff going on.)

This doesn’t mean that mean people are not in Twitter. There are but the chances of these trolls getting into you is less, than how it would be on Facebook. Here’s an illustration. Please keep in mind that I am not an artist, ok?

Twitter:

You have a Twitter account (mine is @sandierpastures) then you follow a bunch of people (referred to as “FOLLOWING”) and a bunch of people follow you, referred to as “FOLLOWERS” in the illustration. Sometimes a person can be your follower as well as someone you’re following (vice-versa relationship, like a Facebook “friend”).

If you’re still confused of the follower-following in Twitter, to simplify:

Followers – they see your tweets

Following – you see their tweets

How Twitter works and what is a ‘tweet’
Every message you send out, called “tweets” in Twitter language is only visible to your followers, not to people you follow unless people specifically access you main Twitter page (http://twitter.com/sandierpastures) where all sent out tweets are found.

For example, if you tweet “Good morning, world! I don’t feel like working today.”

Your followers will know that it’s morning in your world and that you don’t feel like working today.

The people you are following on the other hand, won’t have any inkling of what’s happening in the neck of your woods. Remember you are following them, so you read their tweets, not the other way around.

BULLYING, THE TWITTER SCENARIO
Twitter is an open channel. People don’t need your acceptance or confirmation to be your Twitter ‘friend’ and see your tweets. Sounds scary? NOT REALLY. See, if a bully twitterer send out a nasty tweet of accusation or anything bullying in nature like:

@nastytweeter @sandierpastures You’re cheating in the contest. You should be disqualified!!

The nasty tweet will be visible in the main twitter page but follower wise, only his followers will see that nasty tweet, not mine. And sometimes because @nastytweeter is a troll (with sometimes a fake account), he has no followers so his nasty tweet is really void of meaning. Unless of course if I reply then my followers will know the conversation stream. That I’ve been accused of cheating.

But nasty tweets only need to be ignored like this one because not only because it is baseless – I believe answering to nasty tweets are a complete waste of my time.

And the good news is that, they don’t matter at all really, even if @nastytweeter sends 500 or a thousand similar tweets directed to me, there’s no harm done! The nasty tweet won’t ‘leak’ to my audience (followers) or the people that means to me and I have connection with as long as I ignore it.

Plus, I can mark the twitterer in question as spam or block them and they’ll be gone from my Twitter time line forever.

*wipes dust off shoulders*

BULLYING, THE FACEBOOK SCENARIO
Facebook has always been the reciprocal relationship so I see it as personal type of social media tool as opposed to being professional. This is where family, friends old and new gather to share photos and chat.This is also where people stalk and keep tabs with other people.

You post something people on your friend list sees it, along with hundreds especially if your friends start engaging in your posted status. If you’ve got 5 people commenting on your status and they’ve got 100 friends in their list, your status is immediately available to 500 people all at once.

Well, nothing wrong with that if the conversation stream is pleasant. What if it’s not? Like if someone jumps in and comment that you’re a cheat blah, blah, blah *insert vitriolic comment here*. And remember there is no 140 character limit in Facebook unlike Twitter so your destroyer can have his bullying festival. ‘Course you can delete that nasty comment from your stream: IF YOU ARE ONLINE ALL THE TIME and you had the perfect timing to nip it in the bud before it gets worse – sucks most especially if the comments are not true at all and the only intention is to damage your reputation.

So back to my friend who joined a contest…in that contest page, people were trying to pull her down by posting negative comments, accusing her of cheating her way to win (which she didn’t do at all). The nasty commenters couldn’t even provide a proof but my friend has naturally, reacted to her defense and now the whole conversation stream is uncontrollable and visible to her friends because every move you do in Facebook whether on your own page or with others are visible to everyone on your list.

It’s exhausting and emotionally draining, not to mention time consuming to drop comments here and there to save face, even though it isn’t true.

With so many people using the crazed hysteria that is Facebook, I am sure there’s more to it than meets my eye but it makes an easy channel for character assassination, bullying and easily open to abuse . It puts people on the defensive to protect themselves, it turns vitriolic, it makes real life friends fight. I can’t remember where this original tweet came from but it makes sense to me now:

Twitter makes me like people I’ve never met and Facebook makes me hate people I know in real life.

The reason I don’t like Facebook (as much as Twitter) is that it keeps people busy with useless diversion. Twitter keeps it short, you are bombarded with tweets but only if you choose to, otherwise you can ignore it. No Farmville!

In short, if you like Facebook and it suits you well, fine. I am only saying the worst things that can happen there and we all need to be careful.

February 8, 2011 by findingbackroads

Top 3 Reasons Why I Use Twitter

Blogging
Blogging, Facebook, social media, Twitter
9 Comments

Dubai blogger Sea Bee has written a post titled, “Twitter and Me” where he discussed how he feels lost in Twitter. Another Dubai blogger, Sarah of Dubai-ified wrote an excellent post about Twitter too. This prompted me to talk about Twitter as well as I’m an avid Twitter user.

First off, here are the top three reasons why I use Twitter:

1. Twitter gives me immediate pulse on news and events
What I like about Twitter is that it can be a live coverage of what’s going on around us. Information get to Twitter faster than news agency reporters because everyone with connection to the internet can ‘tweet’ about anything they see or experience real time. It’s like everyone on Twitter are ‘reporters on the go’ and tweeters (or Twitterers) are faster than real reporters on the go!

2. Twitter broadens my reach to wider community and I learn a lot from it
I follow people who tweet about topics I am interested in: blogging, social media, news, parenting, etc. I get a lot of ideas and feedback from people beyond my inner circle of friends and I learn from their informative tweets or the links they post. I even get answers to my questions directly from people who know it best. For me, Twitter is a gold mine of information available for free.

(I have landed paid freelance writing jobs through Twitter and have won prizes through Twitter contests as well, including a laptop)

3. Twitter is less disruptive than Facebook
Though real life friends also tweet each other, many people in Twitter have not met in real life yet they virtually engage in sensible communication. There is no need for a ‘face’ or to look up each other’s photo albums. I don’t need to scour through personal information before replying to a tweet. I always get lost in Facebook and end up spending more time than I should have because there’s too much information on it.

But I see the part where one can’t put his head around Twitter.

Looking at Twitter streams can be intimidating, one would assume that there are lots of Tweeters (Twitter users) who use this micro blogging platform like it’s a giant chat room. That’s why I won’t recommend following thousands – I keep a List of Reasons Why I won’t Follow Someone in Twitter and I only follow a few.

Everyone will be talking at the same time that it’s difficult to sort out good content from bad ones. So what I do is skim through my Twitter time line, read the good tweets and skip the bad ones (unnecessary clutter like repeated RT’s, ad content, etc).

~ Tweetdeck – columns to manage tweets easily. ~

Also, I would recommend every Twitter user to use a Twitter client to make tweeting easy. Tweetdeck, Twhirl and Seesmic Web are just a few. I strongly believe Twitter won’t be too inundating when you use an application.

Next – How do people find the time?
To solve this bit of mystery – I think that most people who are on Twitter are those sitting in front for their computers day in and day out. They have this free Twitter desktop application installed where they check out what’s buzzing in Twitterland while working (*Ahem* You are not allowed to tell my boss!). They engage in tweets they like, click and read links, they tweet whatever comes to mind. But of course I might be talking about myself.

People who aren’t in front of their PC’s have internet packages in their smart phones where they send their tweets. I, however, have no tweeting capability outside and have found myself wanting to tweet what I see but disappointed that I can’t. Yes, I have reached a point where it’s hard for me not to tweet when I want.

Finally, Facebook vs Twitter vs Blogging
There’s no real winner as each is a winner on their own.

Facebook lets me connect with old friends, people I have had an ample amount of online interaction and family, look at their photos, check up the latest about them.

Blogging lets me exceed the 140 character quota per tweet that Twitter has. It makes me expound on the subject more, like what I’m doing now.

Twitter, on the other hand, allows me to engage in brief conversations with people from diverse background and all the three reasons above. Although Twitter will never replace blogging, sometimes the bare basic facts (in 140 chars or less) is all we need.

Honestly if I would be asked to retain only one social media tool in my life, I’d take Twitter over Facebook any day simply for the reason that Facebook connects me with people I already know (friends, family) but Twitter connects me to the world and I don’t have to meet them in real life to connect with them.

As one tweet I read some time back, to sum up Facebook vs Twitter:

“Facebook is about people you used to know; Twitter is about people you’d like to know better.”

You? Which social media are you more active in? Twitter? Facebook? Why?

October 14, 2010 by findingbackroads

Reasons why I won’t follow you in Twitter

I’ve been using Twitter for more than a year now and I love it. In fact, I love it next to blogging and more than I would ever love Facebook. As of date I have more than 1,000 followers but only follow back a few. That way, I can keep up with my Twitter stream and engage in conversations with people whose area of interests are the same with mine or learn things I don’t know.

There are reasons why I don’t/won’t follow every one who follows me. Here are a few reason why I won’t follow you back:

1. Your Twitter avatar displays a massive boob crack or only have little clothes on you.

2. There are no @ mentions in your Twitter stream, which means you use Twitter mainly to ‘talk’ not listen and discuss.

3. The only topic you tweet about is what you had for lunch, along with Twitpic for evidence.

4. You have too much hashtags on your tweets.

5. The only topic you tweet about is your kids and how many times they vomitted over the last 5 hours.

6. You give advices like how to have as many followers as Ashton Kutcher. Your advice might be great but I don’t want to be Ashton Kutcher.

7. Your tweets almost always have external links. I get it, you want to share links you discovered but those links might be porn sites, I’ll never know.

8. You have very few/no followers but follow a thousand dudes and chicks.

9. Your tweets are suicidal in tone.

10. Your tweets mostly contain obscene language. I don’t want to deal with your potty mouth.

11. Your Twitter updates are protected and I need your permission to follow you.

12. Your tweet stream have nothing on it than inspirational quotes or God forbid, Bible verses.

13. You are the RT (retweet) queen or king.

How about you? Any reason why you wouldn’t be following that someone on Twitter?

August 1, 2009 by findingbackroads

Abandoned kitty finds new home via Twitter

If you’re following me on Twitter (you are, aren’t you?), you’ve probably read my string of tweets yesterday about an abandoned kitty that we picked up near our place. The kitty do not look like any of the lolcats I post in this blog. She was weak, hungry and frail.

My mom who couldn’t turn her back on the little critter took her to our home and fed her:

She had a doleful cute face that simply scream: “Take me in, please!”

After eating, she regained some of her strength and played with a tennis ball. She seemed to love tennis balls.

Compare the size of the tennis ball with the head to see how small the kitten is.

She also likes to be touched and would stand on her hind legs when my mom reaches out her hands. (I can only watch from a distance and take photos as I am terribly, unreasonably afraid to touch cats!)

The kitten, maybe about a few weeks old plays for 10 minutes and sleeps and plays again. She looks so peaceful sleeping in our kitchen rug – which prevented me from all my kitchen work, including me reaching for Doritos. Thanks to the little kitty, I was Doritos-free yesterday.

Dubai is a transitory place for expat families like us. People and pets come and go and while responsible pet owners who can’t bring their pets back to their home country re-house their pets by asking other families to take them in, it’s a shame to say that some pet owners leave their pets roaming in the streets.

Simply saying, some people unbelievably throw pets on the streets like how they would throw cigarette butts.

So, last Friday despite being the weekend here in the UAE, I spent an amount of time on Twitter, posting about the abandoned cat, hoping for a response. Some Dubai residents on Twitter retweeted my tweet (pardon the jargon if you’re not on Twitter..basically it just meant someone relayed my message) and now the kitty has a new home thanks to Jay, a radio station DJ with a heart of gold.

We couldn’t keep her since me, the huz and Pristine are all allergic to furry animals. While we know we can’t keep her, we couldn’t turn our backs on the kitty so we were torned yesterday. Here’s hoping we won’t find another stray animal soon!

Finding Backroads

Get out of the tourist trail

Tag / Twitter

Reasons why I won’t follow you in Twitter

Abandoned kitty finds new home via Twitter