Twitter Investigation. Day 130 million – or so it seems.

Okay, I have dipped my two into the pool of social media they call Twitter. I have rippled the surface of the Twitter pool with my investigative Poo Sticks to see which floats under the bridge the quickest – and why. Here are my conclusions:

98.9%, (perhaps a bit more), of people who have over 50 followers on Twitter have some kind of automation on their account. It’s just not practical/possible to keep Twittering to over 50 people on a personal 1-2-1 basis. Of course, if you’re a BIG business or celebrity you may hire a few cheap, (sorry – “out sourced”), overseas students to Tweet for you 24/7. But, in the main – there’s a whole lot of automation going on.

Interestingly, Twitter do say:

While we do welcome feed-based accounts, we discourage aggressive following and other tactics that will alarm people.

Of the 98.9% Twitter Automatons – most of them are trying to sell you something – or drive traffic to their website…. to sell you something there. Whilst, in principle, I commend the use of Twitter as a marketing tool, there are still some who actually see Twitter as to what it was originally designed/described to be:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets.

– and not the grossly over commercialised beast that it’s turning into.

I’m still experimenting with Twitter. If you want to be a real person and talk about real stuff – then come join me here: Paul Flanagan On Twitter – and no spamming please!

p.s. yes that’s 3 underscores between Paul and Flanagan

Tags: account, automation, Automatons, business, Celebrity, course, drive traffic, Flanagan, followers, Investigation, marketing tool, overseas students, paul flanagan, principle, real stuff, social networking, twitter, Twittering, Whilst

Too XXXX etc For Blogging. I’ll leave you fill in the blanks.

Actually, there’s a whole multitude of reasons why I haven’t put pen to paper, fingers to key board etc recently – but I’m not about to go through them now. Need a typewriter to send a letter to a friend, lawyer, school etc? Go here: Granada Hills Business Machines – excellent quality goods & service. Okay, that’s the advert over with!

I’ve tried Twitter, Twitpic, Power Twitter, and most recently Tiny Twitter – a Javascript application you upload to your mobile phone that allows you a smoother ride to Twitter, and no constant text updates – if I could even get Twitter text updates on Orange in the UK – HA! Facebook does text updates – and you can select as many friends as you like to get a text alert when they update their status etc – it’s quite good. I’d use Twitter a lot more – but there’s so few “real people” I know on Twitter that use it, (as opposed to Facebook).

But! The blog is not dead!

I haven’t been feeling myself recently…. which is a filthy habit anyway, I know… lol… and have basically been “not in the mode” to write etc. Right now, today, I feel like poo. I’m out of bed too early, starting work too early, (because there’s too much to do), and generally not in the mood to do anything. And I’m off to Galway, Ireland, tomorrow for a couple of days – so I need to get a good night’s sleep tonight.

Blargh….

I suppose I better go and put the kettle on….

Tags: Blargh, blogging, business machines, Facebook, filthy habit, Galway, galway ireland, granada hills, Ireland, Javascript, letter to a friend, mobile phone, pen to paper, text updates, Twitpic, twitter, typewriter, xxxx