06 April, 2010

If I Recently Broke Up With You On Twitter

If I recently broke up with you on Twitter, it’s not you, it's me.

If I broke up with you months ago, it was you. You were annoying.

Or you hadn't Tweeted in a really long time so following you was really pointless.

But if I broke up with you in the last few days, it wasn't you, it was me.

I discovered I'm not really that into Twitter.

I have tried to follow as many as 150 people and orgs on Twitter but some of them Overtweeted, Tweeted selfishly, Tweeted self indulgently and lost me long ago so a few months ago I stopped following the self-proclaimed marketing geniuses and the Overtweeters and the silly Tweeters and the annoying Tweeters and the self indulgent Tweeters until I was only following about 50 really quality people. News sources, mostly, but also a few friends and a few authors I like.

Now I’m not following anybody. But the fact that I don’t follow you anymore doesn’t mean I don’t like you or that I’m not your friend.

Well, there were a few people who tweeted “G-o-o-o-o Mountaineers” as if fearful that if they didn’t constantly proclaim their loyalty to WVU people would mistake them for Kentucky fans. Yeah, I stopped following.

What it means is that I discovered I simply wasn’t really checking Twitter very often.

And on the rare occasions when I did check Twitter I was getting too much “Let’s go Mountaineers” and too many tweets that were designed not to make any sense unless I clicked the link to the tweeter’s website or blog.

In 140 characters you can’t give me a complete thought? Really?

If you can’t sum up your thesis in 140 characters then maybe you really haven’t mastered your subject.

I’ve already lost a follower since I de-followed everybody.

And I figure I’ll lose more because my next step is to link my LinkedIn status line with my Twitter account and just stop using Twitter altogether.

My Tweetstream is public so you can see what I Tweet but it’s going to be pretty boring unless you’re interested in my LinkedIn status line updates which will consist mostly of self-serving announcements that there’s a new post on my blog.

And if, for some reason, you wish to follow me on Twitter, knock yourself out. But I can’t imagine why you’d want to.

I expect to get some hateful, cowardly, anonymous comments.

From now on, Higginbotham At Large will publish no anonymous or pseudonymous comments.

Coming soon to Higginbotham At Large:

“The Co-Signer Effect”