Tweet?

Welcome back. Do you tweet or follow anyone who does? I’ve been told that I should open a Twitter account and tweet away. After hemming and hawing and giving profound consideration to the possibility for a year or two, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not sure. (You may recall that decisions aren’t my forte, Decision-Making Time.) 
 

Oops. Wrong bird for Twitter
 symbol. (photo from one on
 multiple websites)

If you’ve also delayed joining the Twitter universe or are new to thinking about it, you might be interested in the list of pros and cons I’ve compiled--at least the pros. The cons are more personal. You’re welcome to borrow any.

To Tweet or Not

Pro (P): Everyone is doing it--over half a billion people. Although 40% of Twitter users only read other peoples’ tweets, there are still over 9000 tweets per second.
Con (C): I don’t feel needed.

P: More and more celebrities and politicians are tweeting.
C: (Censored)

P: Twitter is an excellent way to share all the interesting things I do.
C: If I started tweeting, the global economy would be threatened when my expanding network of Twitter followers demanded more and more time off from work to read, retweet (RT) and translate (TT) my daily dose of the interesting things I do.

P: It’s like Facebook but better.
C: It’s like Facebook.

P: Twitter is a way to share my thoughts quickly.
C: I’d have to stop everything I’m doing for a week to count the times I’ve slipped, offended, gotten into trouble or otherwise bungled the message by sharing my thoughts quickly (i.e., with too little thought).

P: I could use Twitter to promote my blog.
C: The Retired--Now What? Blog is unpromotable; too many topics.

P: I would finally be an adopter of more social media technologies.
C: Huh?

P: I could use the same abbreviations I use when I text.
C: I’ll definitely remember that if I ever start texting.

P: Twitter is perfect for mobile phones.
C: And exactly how does that pertain to me?

P: I could learn what people are saying about almost any topic.
C: Whoa! Learning what Twitter users are saying about a topic is probably reliable if I’m keeping up with Lady GaGa and useful if I’m monitoring a disaster or crisis. But Twitter users are only a subset of the population of “people,” and those who tweet aren’t a random sample of that population. Worse, think of the time I’d need to read the tweets about a topic, especially about Lady GaGa, who has over 40 million followers.

P: Since I’m retired, it would give me something to do.
C: Since I’m retired, I’ve got better things to do.

P: News networks are tweeting breaking news.
C: Oh, great! More cryptic headlines and less news.

P: It would force me to write concisely.
C: A limit of 140 characters, including spaces, isn’t really that concise. With my technical writing background, I would have no difficulty con…

Wrap Up

Twitter came to mind because it recently filed for an initial public offering, but there are so many other possibilities. How about Tumblr, where my blogs could be micro? (Lady GaGa uses Tumblr.) Kik is out; I’d need a smartphone. Shapchat is all about photos and it’s too ethereal. I’m way too outdated for Pheed. As always, your kibitzing would be greatly appreciated. Use as many characters as it takes.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Twitter website and statistics:
twitter.com/
www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/

Help for potential Twitter users:
techland.time.com/2013/05/21/twitter-101-understanding-the-basics/?xid=newsletter-techland
www.jhische.com/twitter/
thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/09/15/a-list-twitters-language/
mashable.com/2013/07/19/twitter-lingo-guide/
techland.time.com/2013/09/13/5-surprising-things-you-can-find-on-twitter/?xid=newsletter-techland

Wikipedia’s list of social networking sites (not current):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites