So that got me to thinking about social media. Are the same people generally online at the same time? Of the (almost) 15,000 people following me, are the same few hundred the only ones that see my tweets? I get @replies from a variety of people, but not everyone responds to every tweet. What’s the true exposure, even with thousands of followers?

What do you think?

About two months ago, I read an article that said that Generation Y (kids in their teens to mid-20s) is not into Twitter. I found that surprising at the time. My thinking was that because that generation is into the texting with cell phones, that should naturally extend into Twitter.

That sparked a mini discussion with @hartsock who agreed with the article. A few weeks later, he tweeted another article to me that teens don’t Twitter.

Having thought about my wife said, this actually makes sense. While Gen Y is at a stage where they want to belong, they don’t care about the world at large and aren’t interested in putting their proverbial stake in it. They are in their own little world, interested in their own friends and family, and aren’t at a point in life where they have the desire to change the world.

Texting makes sense because they are communicating with people they know. Facebook makes sense because, again, only people they know are allowed to be their friends. They would have no idea what to do with strangers that are following them willy nilly. And, for teens, that’s probably a good thing.

These are, of course, sweeping generalities that match most of the group defined as Gen Y. I’m sure there are plenty of teenagers and people in their early to mid 20s that use Twitter. And I bet they fall into the same category as most Twitter users as described above. But given the research, they are in the minority.

Are you a Gen Y-er that tweets? If so, why are you on Twitter? If not, do you think the research is right? Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Her theory was that tweeters are the type of people that are wanting to make an impact on the world. They are trying to make a difference in people’s lives by being informative. On a less flattering note, they are also people that are looking for a place to belong. I had to put some thought into her hypothesis, but I think there is some truth to what she said, in both respects.

I do want to make my mark on the world and, as much as I hate to admit it, I enjoy participating in the clique that is Twitter and in knowing that fellow tweeters like me enough to recommend me for #followfriday.

Blogging is much the same. If you’ve read any of my earlier posts, you know I think of Twitter as a microblogging tool. So as a blogger, I have the same motivation, but just in a more long-winded sense. Blogging would, however, tend to skew toward the impact-on-the-world theory more than the wanting-to-belong theory, but as a blogger, I do like to see comments appear on my posts agreeing with my babble.

Certainly, the blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch are more online magazines than weblogs that the word “blog” is derived from, but blogs from people like you and me are more of our soap box in the virtual Hyde Park of the web.

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. So I can feel loved.

When I first heard about this, I had a rather negative emotional reaction to it. I was ready to write about it, but decided to wait and take a step back first. Writing when you’re in the heat of battle is never a good thing.

After a few days, I started thinking why this bothered me so much. Social media is definitely becoming a research vehicle for potential employers. As it should be. How you display yourself out to the public can reflect on the company you work for, good or bad. But there is a distinction between what is available to the entire world vs. what is available to a few friends.

Asking for a password to an account–any account–is akin to asking for the key to your house so they can walk around in it. There is an expectation of privacy behind a password. Allowing access behind that password gives access to parts of your life that a stranger–someone you may never see again–should never see.

Sites like MySpace and Twitter are, by nature, public. What you post there can be seen by the whole world. And as a member of those sites, you need to be cognizant of that at all times. It gets even more so if you are using a screen name that relates to your company like I do on Twitter. You are essentially representing your company whether your tweets are about the company or not.

Sites like Facebook, on the other hand, have privacy controls that let you show what you want to who you want. If you keep your profile restricted from the general public, there is no reason a potential employer needs to see what’s there, because no one but who you give access to will.

Granted, some people are using Facebook like Twitter to gather as many friends as possible. In that case, the Twitter rule applies. But most people have a smattering of in-real-life friends that they befriend on Facebook. Presumably, these people know you. And if you’re going to post pictures of yourself acting like a complete moron, your friends will know it’s you being a moron and not a moron that works for a particular company (not that you should be posting those pictures anyway).

A potential employer asking for a password to a social site is really no different than asking for the password to your email (or the key to your house). They’ll tell you it’s different, but it’s not. Password protected information is, by nature, private. They wouldn’t require a password if it wasn’t.

If an interviewer asks you for that information, I suggest you politely refuse. If they said it’s a requirement for the job, I suggest you politely decline the job. There are other jobs out there (even in today’s economy). If they are going to watch you that closely before you even start working there, imagine how closely they’ll watch you when you are working there.

Original post at http://www.manolith.com/2009/06/21/the-story-so-far-of-twitter/.

Ever talk to that guy or girl that just goes on and on and on?  And worse yet, they’re not really saying anything?  The great thing about 140 characters is that you have to get to the point.  You can say a lot in 140 characters.  More than I expected when I first started tweeting.

I certainly have those moments where I’m squeezing words, using funky abbreviations, and chopping sentences to make things fit, but that’s when it gets really fun.  It becomes a challenge.

The real challenge is when you want to @reply to a bunch of people at once and have a lot to say.  Then things get really interesting.

When you have unlimited space like a blog, you too easily get wordy, say more than you have to, and repeat yourself.  You can also get wordy, say more than you have to, and repeat yourself.

If you think 140 characters isn’t enough, you’re not challenging yourself.

Twitter was intended to let people–a small group of friends and family, perhaps–know what you are doing. That’s fine, but Twitter has evolved into something much more than that. Unless you’re a personal friend of the person that’s tweeting, you don’t much care if that person is eating breakfast or sitting on the can. What Twitter has evolved into is a collective of thoughts, ideas, and information that is beginning to influence the world around us. A Tworg collective, if you will.

In the article, CEO Evan Williams responded to the observations of Marshall Kirkpatrick with this statement:

Many people fall into the trap that you should follow all or most people back out of a sense of politeness or so-called engagement with the community. … I believe people will generally get more value out of Twitter by dropping the symmetrical relationship expectation and simply curating their following list based on the information and people they want to tune in to.

I don’t think it’s a trap. I think it’s a choice. And I think it’s the better choice. Here’s why:

Communication in general, and Twitter specifically, is a two-way street. People are willing to listen, but they also want to be heard. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you actually listen, but that you are willing to. Celebrities that follow back get more followers because they *might* be heard.

I currently follow over 11,000 people. Obviously, I can’t read everything that all of those people tweet, but that’s what filters are for. Desktop clients like Seesmic and TweetDeck to a very good job of allowing you to create groups so you only have to “listen” to a select few. I have groups for personal friends, for technical tweeters, and an “other” group for those people I generally find interesting. However, every once in a while, I glance over at the “All Friends” feed and something catches my eye. I’ll investigate that person further and if their previous tweets are interesting, I’ll add them to one of my filtered lists. If I didn’t follow back 90% of the people that follow me, I would have missed out on some very interesting people.  This is partly a time issue because I can’t properly evaluate every single person that follows me, but I give them the benefit of the doubt.  And I can either filter or unfollow them later.

The way I see it, my personal Tworg collective is better the more people I have in it. Everyone is welcome to join my collective so that I might find something interesting come across my communication neurons. The exception is that if a new Tworg tells me they made a lot of money on Twitter, or I can get 16,000 more Tworgs to my collective in the next 30 days, I’ll sever my connection to them and leave them in deep space with a can of processed meat to chew on until they find the next cube.

We are Tworg. Resistance is futile.

That got me to thinking about how I use the various social media sites.  I definitely have a division of labor between each of the sites.  Do you use them the same way I do?

Twitter

If you read my post about Why I Tweet, you’ll know that I think of Twitter as a microblog.  I use Twitter to throw out random thoughts to the world to see what sticks.  I don’t care who’s reading it or why.  I’m expressing my opinion like standing on a soap box in Hyde Park.  Anyone who cares to listen, can.  And because of that, I try not to get personal too often.

Facebook

Facebook is more for people who know me.  I post personal status updates, post family photos (my kid’s birthday party or a recent trip), and have fun taking personality tests that would only really mean anything to someone who knew me.  It’s more akin to a (very large) private dinner party than a public soapbox.  So if you just met me on Twitter, I’m not going to be your Facebook friend, so don’t ask me.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an ingenious idea.  It is (or should be) strictly professional and works on the premise of business networking.  You don’t have friends, you have Connections.  And your Connections’ Connections are what make up your Network.  So if you need someone with a particular set of skills, but don’t know anyone with them, it is a good bet that someone in your network does.  And you can use your Connections to contact them. I mainly keep in touch with former colleagues on LinkedIn and what they are up to professionally.  I am LinkedIn to a few personal friends, but there, it’s all about business.

MySpace

I don’t get MySpace.  I joined because I had to get in touch with someone who wasn’t answering their emails, but I knew was active on MySpace.  So I created an account to send them MySpace mail.  At the time, I decided to complete my profile to see what the buzz was about.  I lost interest quickly.

MySpace, to me, was just a bunch of self-promoting billboards.  There was no real interaction.  They have status and mood updates now, but it’s still more about you than it is about your relationships.  I don’t know if becoming more like Facebook helped them.  But by the time they added that functionality, I had already moved on.

Plaxo

Plaxo started out as one giant address book.  I really liked the idea because your friends could update their contact information and you could get the update instantly.  The problem is, like most address books, that it doesn’t get updated.  People forget about it and it’s not better than my paper address book at home.

FriendFeed

I haven’t figured out FriendFeed yet.  I don’t really use it because I don’t see how it’s different from Twitter.  I’ve been told the signal to noise ratio is better, but most postings there end up on Twitter anyway.

—–

What bothers me about a lot of these social media sites is that they are all trying to jump on the Facebook bandwagaon.  Due to the success of Facebook, all are trying to copy it in some manner or another now with status updates and the like.  But they really shouldn’t.  Each social media site really has its niche.  They should stick with what they started out doing and do it well.  People aren’t going to use their site because it does what Facebook does.  People use Facebook for Facebook.  They aren’t going to jump ship just because the same feature is now on a different site.  But they will use sites for something unique that Facebook (or any other social media site for that matter) doesn’t have.

I had already been a member of Twitter for a number of months, but the account was more for testing our application’s interface to Twitter more than it was for tweeting.  But now it was going to be converted to a second corporate account, from a developer’s point of view.

As I started, I did what most people do.  I answered Twitter’s question.  I managed to get one or two #followfriday recommendations that first week, which surprised me.  I’m not sure if those first few were just randomly choosing people for #followfriday, or truly liked my tweets.

But after a while, I realized, the question isn’t “What are you doing,” but “what are you thinking?” And if you ask your own question at the end of your tweet, it engages people.  Fellow tweeters respond.  And that’s where the magic happens.  After all, it is called “social media.”  It’s about learning what others have to say, retweeting things you think others will find interesting, and expressing an opinion.

I don’t care that your sitting on your porch staring at the stars, that your watching Britain’s Got Talent, or that you’re in line to see Star Trek.  I do, however, want to know that you found a cool link about the aurora borealis as it looks in space, whether you think Susan Boyle should have won or lost (ok, that one might be overdone a bit), or you have something funny to say about the new Star Trek movie.

What Chris Crum wrote in his article is really true.  Twitter is a microblog.  If you have something to say about a topic, you might write a blog post (like I am right now), but if you just have a quick comment, you might tweet about it instead.

I don’t forget that I’m using my Twitter account for business and throw in the occasional plug about my company.  But I’m also having fun getting people to play #namethattune, retweeting cool links, and being surprised at which of my tweets get retweeted.

Ultimately, it comes down to the interaction with fellow tweeters that make tweeting fun and addictive.  That’s why I tweet.  Why do you?

While I’ve had (inactive) Friendster and MySpace accounts for a number of years, I really got started in social media through my job at a small startup in the Twin Cities. I got involved with Facebook in late ’07 and Twitter in late ’08 and it’s those two sites that really piqued my interest in “social media.”

Even with my involvement with social media, I would not call myself an “expert” in the field. There are a lot of people a lot smarter than me when it comes to social media. However, I do have some “expertise,” both as a user and as a developer.

I’m a Java developer by trade and have been for 12 years. I recently developed links from a web application to Facebook and Twitter as well as a couple of stand-alone Facebook applications (one for work, and one on my own). I will be expanding those efforts into MySpace and OpenSocial in the near future. It’s in these development efforts that I got involved in social media and really began to understand them–and then became an addict.

How did you learn about the social media site you use?

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