I pretty much just delete most twitter friends requests… I already track most of the folks I want to. But after about the 6th or 7th “Xxxxxx is following you” message from the same person, I got a creepy feeling like someone was breathing bad breath down my neck.
If I have little patience for blog spam, twitter spam is down there as well:
I visited this spam tweeter, but only to block them. What happens?
Are you sure you want to block this person? Here’s what blocking means:
* You will no longer show up in the blocked person’s list of friends.
* Your updates won’t show up on the blocked person’s profile page.
* The blocked person will not be able to add you as a friend.
Perfect.
Go away.
And brush your teeth or buy a mint, damnit.
I finally just left the public timeline. If you do that, no one can follow you except friends you’ve accepted.
I have that same person constantly requesting me too, definitely need to block them. I don’t understand why people I don’t know would want to friend me.
What’s most annoying about that one is the constant re-adding. I can totally cope with random people I don’t know following my feed (most of my 39 followers are indeed people I don’t know), but if I keep getting a “this person has added you” it makes me want to throw things.
Which is bad because usually the only thing in reach at such times is the laptop. The work laptop.
Block, I think.
Whoa, the same guy keeps adding me, too! I was wondering if blocking him works. It does from the looks of this.
I like it when random people add me (makes me feel popular), but when the same guy is doing it over and over again, it’s too much.
You are the sales people, I am the customer. Convince me to “buy” twitter. Sounds like IM (which I absolutely can’t do – too wordy) or those people who report every minute of their waking life via cellphones…”I’m sitting down. I’m reading the menu. The waiter brought me some water. I ordered steak, medium rare…” How will twittering make my life better or my teaching career more meaningful? I’m not a technophobe, but so many tools and applications have been flung at me, with more added daily, that I need to be selective or drown in the abundance. Advise me, please!
Diane,
Your skepticism is right on target for the Twitter Adoption (or not) Cycle (see the graphic).
However its not a sales game, and even if it were, you are not in a passive role. The entire point of my “Being There” presentation is that ** you cannot suss these things out on the sidelines”” You will not learn the answers to your questions just be me trying to explain it to you.
But a few things to munch on- its is not just people bleating about their lunch, or the minutiae of their day… that is a false reductionist view; see some of the examples:
http://flickr.com/photos/cogdog/502786725/in/set-72157600226433215/
and Claudia’s overview This Twittering Life
http://eltnotes.blogspot.com/2007/04/this-twittering-life.html
And read carefully Clive Thompson’s Wired statement “Twitter and other constant-contact media create social proprioception. They give a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination.”
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-07/st_thompson
I would never ever promise that twitter will “make your life better” — those are questions you need to seek yourself.
Thanks for the response. As a ’60s Peace Marcher, I’m the last one to accept a passive role! It just seems sometimes that I can’t process all the new technologies touted by the more electronically proficient bloggers I read. I want to play in the cyber sandbox but need to stay focused on my teaching career right now. But won’t I have fun in retirement!