[dpcan]

Will someone explain the first sentence? "Are you addicted to Twitter?"

What does that mean? How does that happen? What exactly are people getting "addicted" to?

I've used Twitter here and there, posted, or used it for a real-time search, but it just seems like retweets of the same articles over and over again, and then just constant regurgitation of the same information ... or tweets about nothing at all.

If you're still using Twitter, why? What value can I possibly extract from this thing? What are you getting out of it?

[johns]

You're following the wrong people. Seriously. Follow your interests, unfollow liberally, tweet consistently. Put noisy but important people on lists (don't need to follow them for this). That's what I do. I talk to our customers. I talk to other devs that use the same tools I do. I talk to people who like the same sports teams I do. Find your community and talk to them. It's been immensely valuable for me.

[Terretta]

Your comment should be on Twitter's welcome screen. It hadn't occurred to me to movie noisy people into lists.

[Terretta]

[move]

[pufuwozu]

You know that Discovery Channel gunman, James Lee? Photos of him were going around Twitpic before reporters could even get to the building. Think of it as real-time publishing for the masses.

Twitter definitely has value - it's just completely overwhelmed with junk.

[megablast]

I know people addicted to twitter, it has replaced IRC for a lot of people. They follow all their friends who follow them back. So they whenever anything happens, they tweet it, their friends respond to it, etc...

It is just like the old chat rooms for some people. They will post 100s of tweets a day, stuff that happened to them, but mainly response to other people. It is an ongoing conversation these people are having over weeks and months. They make friends with some, then lose them.

Lots of people don't use twitter that way, and I don't think it is the best way.

[izendejas]

Think of it as an interest network-- albeit one that can get noisy, if you're not careful.

I got started realizing I can follow smart people doing phds, entrepreneurs, hackers etc who are doing things I'm interested in. And occasionally, I can ask them questions.

My followee list has evolved over time when my interests change or when someone gets too noisy.