Twitter « A System Sally

Twitter

Published May 5, 2009 communication , technology 6 Comments

Use twitter, it isn’t all bad.

In fact, you can get more systems, in short form, from twitter.com/systemsally

6 Responses to “Twitter”

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1 jacob May 5, 2009 at 7:57 pm

drawbacks- no dialogue on systems. no linking to past examples. systems limited to very few characters. you have to be a twitter user to interact. you can’t categorize your posts.

what’s good about this system?

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2 systemsally May 6, 2009 at 7:00 am

smake, when you sent a twitter saying “use twitter instead of website so people can’t dialogue on posts” i thought you were telling me to use twitter instead of website so people can’t dialogue on posts. In other words, I thought you had tired of dialoguing, and wanted a purer and more streamlined systemsally, that was simply pithy systems. Since you were the original commissioner, I think I automatically went with your request.

reading this comment, now I see you meant something completely different. in a way, you were calling me a rascal for having switched to a medium that prevented people from showing dissenting systems.

either way, i have some comments.
my understanding of twitter is that it is an open conversation. that it is actually an uber-comment system, an uber-dialoguing system, because it facilitates an integrated blogging/commenting universe, where your comments come into my stream as comments, but your comments are the heart of your stream as their written. your comments aren’t subservient to my posts, they are on the same level, because they offer you the same level of authority that i have. a blog has a built in hierarchy, and a commenter is at the bottom. it is true that comments are restricted to 140 chars. which one could make the argument isn’t enough space to really have a dialogue, but i think again it’s equal…my posts and your commenting posts are given the same constraint. i think this is interesting. i thought it funny when i suggested “aren’t we dialoguing right now?” and you said “you think so?” to me, this is a dialogue. obviously, since you questioned me about my sincere thought about the matter, it seems like it’s not a dialogue to you. is it because it’s too short?

i do not want to replace the systemsally blog with a twitter feed, i was simply presenting a system here which is “use twitter, it isn’t all bad.” i wasn’t saying “use twitter as your exclusive blogging platform.” that’s a different system…which i’ve thought of, but is not what i intended.

but in response to your other drawbacks.
as far as i know you can link to past examples. you can go to the actual url of any tweet, and/or use the retweet to suggest a link back to an earlier post.

systems are limited to very few characters, but this is a critique of microblogging/twitter in general. yes, it’s limited, but this is also a strength, as a constraint of such an extreme nature can really help one find the essence of what they are trying to say. since systemsally loves efficiency, in some ways, twittering a system is the purest way of doing it. yes, i get extreme joy out of providing more detail and instruction, but if you notice, more and more of systemsally’s posts were getting shorter anyway.

yes, twitter is a closed system. again, this is a critique you could apply to the iphone, to DRM music, the kindle. twitter is a closed system. but, to leave a comment on systemsally you also have to register. it’s much more open, but still requires this piece. indenti.ca is an open microblogging platform. systemsally also has an identi.ca feed. i’m working out a way to sync them, so people that don’t want to join a closed system can participate there.

you can categorize your posts with twitter. this is what hashtags (#) are for. i will start using them, i promise. you can then start searching my twitter feed for the various topics.

so, i’ve either debunked or come clean about all of the drawbacks you have laid out. but, i think mostly debunked or provided alternatives.

but, in general, if i were to have a system for blogging v twittering it would be this:

have both a blog and a twitter/identi.ca account and have them sync’d in a way that draws readers to the blog, and keeps readers informed through twitter. i haven’t worked out this system yet, but i think it could be really promising.

for twitter, i think the advantages are many:

-constant dialogue
-no hierarchy of authority
-easy linking from previous posts
-140 chars. provides creative and clear thinking constraint
-easy hashtag categorization
-the lazy way to blog. this way, even if i don’t have the energy to write a whole system down, i am more willing to send out a short tweet so people can follow really how many systems i do have on a constant basis.
-most people don’t know about rss feeds and google reader. people are more likely, at this point, to have a twitter account than a rss reader. this means once people start following systemsally on twitter, they are more likely to benefit from my content there, then they are if left to their own devices to visit the website.

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3 jacob May 6, 2009 at 8:08 am

first off, thank you for the thoughtful reply, which would be impossible on twitter.

i was being sarcastic when i told you to only use twitter– obviously i take great joy in helping you to improve your systems, and not being able to fully engage takes all the fun out of telling you how much better my systems are than yours. it’s true i can answer you back on twitter, but the answer doesn’t become part of the post the way it does on the website. nick won’t read it, and people reading it won’t read it, and won’t join in on the conversation.

as far as hash tags and backlinks, they eat up so much of a precious resource! 140 characters is not enough! besides, it makes the damn things impossible to read!

as far as equality and lack of hierarchy, i think what you mean is lack of focus. i want to read what you say, and read what others think of it. with twitter, this is impossible (unless you re-tweet whatever someone says about you, which is preposterous). twitter offers 1 on 1 dialogue, not an open conversation, which in this case i find more interesting. it’s valuable for me to read what lilah writes about your post, but i am not going to search for “@systemsally” every day to see if anyone is writing you anything. the dialogue thread hashtag idea is also foolish: a search for #d1 puts your comments at the top, but they will get buried in time with everyone else (who seems to either talk in german or portugeuse). not searchable, not archived, not categorized? in this case it all adds up to: not valuable.

as far as a creative and clear thinking constraint, i’m not following you to read about “terse systems”, i’m following to read all the finicky shit you might have to say about why carrying your phone in a particular pocket is better for you.

i think if you want to use twitter to draw
people to the blog, you should write a twitter whenever you put up an excellent blog entry. like:

systemsally: new phone system: flush it! http://tiny.cc/FUup

but if you’re trying to migrate the content of the blog to twitter, i think you’re being foolish. don’t forget that twitter is valuable precisely because it’s informal, low-level chatter, which precludes it from being for measured, well-thought-out essays, which is what i enjoy and expect from you.

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4 prevs May 6, 2009 at 9:38 pm

i think there’s software that will automatically post the title and link of a new blog post to your twitter account whenever you make a post.

you could also go the other direction and get comments…

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5 systemsally May 6, 2009 at 11:03 pm

prevs, i have the twitter->wordpress set up, but it looks like the wordpress->twitter requires a hosted version of wordpress, not the wordpress.com where systemsally is currently located.

smacob, i’d have to say that your comment is really sweetly correct.

i’m glad to hear you further explain why twitter’s drawbacks are indeed drawbacks. i think i agree. it’s like a lot of things…it isn’t better or worse, it can’t replace the blog, it’s just a different thing with its own strengths and weaknesses. and yes, it’s thoroughly possible, probable, or definite, that it’s not the best tool for the job of cataloguing well-thought-out systems. i definitely don’t have a strong thought either way…even in my last comment, you could see my ambivalence in trying to come up with a blogging/twitter blogging system…but you also know i work in extremes, enjoy exploring things ad nauseum to fully understand them, and I think it’s worth stretching twitter to its limit to see really what’s possible.

but yeah, i feel inspired to get back to what i do best…laying out in depth systems for your listening viewer pleasure

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