dreamshark: (Default)
It really looks like The Chief Twit is literally determined to destroy Twitter. First he bombastically Freed the Bird and then he massacred his new organization in an unprecedented overnight orgy of messy layoffs. Who fires HALF THEIR EMPLOYEES during what's supposed to be an orderly transition? Unsurprisingly, the avian advertisers are now frantically flying the coop, taking most of the company's revenue with it.  

But why on earth would Musk do this? He knew the company was losing money when he bought it, and clearly had no viable plan to reverse that (I don't think that alienating all of his main sources of cash and firing half the employees counts as a viable plan, although accomplishing all that within the first week is an impressive show of energy). So presumably he intended it as a hobby, not a business. Okay, fair enough. When you are "the richest man on earth" you can spend your money on anything that amuses you, whether it's private bowling alleys in the basement or a campaign to stamp out malaria or getting all the grownups out of the way so you can play games with an online megaphone. But he keeps issuing these confusing statements about "needing a source of revenue."  WTF?  

Maybe the surprising thing is actually that this coked-up human battering ram was ever able to run a business successfully. Anyway, it should be fun to watch the death spiral. I never hated Twitter, but at this point I'm just as glad to see it go. It was a fun experiment but in the end I'm afraid the damage that it caused outweighed the fun. 

And it is so nice to see people taking this moment to return to my own favorite social media. Welcome back, friends! Let's talk!

dreamshark: (Default)
I started out by following a few basic news sources: Reuters, CNN, StarTribune, Huffington Post. I dropped CNN because it was pretty much a duplicate of Reuters, but Reuters has more international news. Dropped Huffington because they were too verbose. Added The Onion, thinking it would be funny. Mostly, however, it hasn't been. Weirdly, they seem to be tweeting "What Do You Think" topics. Not sure if they are looking for serious discussion or if there are embedded links to their joke on-the-street interviews. I may drop them. Realized that since I actually subscribe to and read the Strib, following them on Twitter is just redundant. Added a few local sources, like City of Minneapolis.

Then I started looking for people I know and followed everyone that i found. Not sure if I want to do that or not, since i really have no feel for what normal people tweet about, or how often. So far it hasn't been too overwhelming - most of my acquaintances don't seem to be the tweet-every-hour type.

I'm following a few celebrities, mostly funny ones like Weird Al Yankovich and George Takei.

I've had about half-a-dozen spammers find me already, which is startling. They must have very efficient bots. I figured out how to block and report them as spammers in one click.

Now I'm being followed by some entity called "Know Minneapolis." I assume this is some kind of marketing entity, but they seem benign, mostly tweeting about local happenings. Why are they following me? How exactly are they planning to make money off of me? Is Twitter too paranoia-inducing for me?
dreamshark: (Default)
Okay, I joined Twitter as "sekahn" (but haven't tweeted anything yet). I am now following 13: pretty much everybody I ran across that I know IRL, all the participants in the Slate Political gabfest, and a couple of non-human entities just to see how that works out.

Okay, that's a little creepy. I have managed to acquire 6 followers. Four people who either saw my post on LJ or noticed that I had started following them, and two total strangers with whom I seem to have absolutely nothing in common. WTF? I realize that Twitter is a broadcast medium, not a true social network where you just chat with your friends. But where did these two followers come from?

Oh. I see. Both of them have links to their websites in their profiles. Both websites have the words "free" and "porn" prominently featured.
Yuck. Is there some way to block stuff like this?
dreamshark: (Default)
Should I use my real name?
Who should I follow?
What else do I need to know?


ETA: I signed up as sharonekahn and immediately forgot my password. I found their password recovery methodology inscrutable, so gave up and started a second account under the more compact name of sekahn. (Amazingly enough, sekahn was available but  dreamshark wasn't.)


I briefly followed the person who did have dreamshark and was vastly disappointed. I think it's a business account of some kind, but not clear.  Even more disappointing was the owner of sharonkahn, who appears to be a teenage stoner. I was expecting my googleganger (Sharon Kahn the mystery writer) but she seems to be using skahn. Probably because stoner sharonkahn beat her to the full name.


Anyway, if anyone wants to follow me, it's sekahn.