Disillusioned with Twitter

Sept 28, 2009

Here‘s a little rant about social networking.

In recent times, you were nobody if you weren’t on Twitter. It was an essential business and personal branding tool.

I am on Twitter (@KathleenSBarnes) and am approaching 2,400 followers. Not too shabby. I have some wonderful followers who post interesting stuff.

But lately, I find I have to make myself to go Twitter and post a couple of pithy 140-character comments each day. I actually miss a lot of these.

Why? Because I find my inbox inundated with new followers that offer nothing less than spam. There are the ads to get thousands of new followers effortlessly, multi-level marketing companies promising untold riches and folks who want to sell me coaching packages for “only $997.”

That’s not even mentioning the uptick in pornography. Hey folks, I’m not a guy. Not many people named “Kathleen” are guys.

When Twitter began, it was frankly, silly. I mean, who cares if you’re at Starbucks drinking a latte or sitting in the dentist’s office?

Then Twitter hit its heyday in 6 or 8 months ago with interesting people saying interesting things, folks tweeting from the plane that made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, even tweeting news stories before the conventional news media caught on to the fact that news was breaking and the people on the scene had already gotten the word out. News organizations even began creating Twitter accounts so they could get the early scoops. Who could forget the power of the tweets that came out of Iran after the stolen election? That was social networking at its zenith.

During that heady time, I could hardly wait to logon in the mornings and dip my toes into the unending stream of interesting and thought-provoking information. I found myself enticed back there several times a day. I used TweetDeck to stay up to date with group of followers whose tweets I found the most useful. I probably spent too much tie there, but I know I learned a great deal and I am richer for the experience.

I hope that, in return, I offered information that was of value to them. I will continue to do so, although perhaps less frequently.

I’m waiting out this deluge of scamsters, get-rich-quick schemes and other mindless nonsense. Hopefully, this will pass and Twitter will regain some of its fascination for me. If not, I’ll move on to something more exciting and useful.

Until then, I’m choosing to spend less time on Twitter. Call it asocial networking. I’m spending more time on some exciting new projects I’ll be telling you about soon. It’s more productive and more personally satisfying. I promise not to scam you or spam you. Ever.