I think I'd like to have a Twitter account, but I don't understand much about it. I'm sure they'll have help pages on their site, but I believe asking questions of those who have practical experience is better. So if anyone feels inclined to answer either of these simple questions, I'd be much obliged.
1) I'm most interested in using Twitter as a kind of rolling noticeboard for concerts and other events I attend, to receive notifications and updates. Is it possible to use it that way without adding original content of my own?
2) If I did want to add original content, is it possible to limit the audience who can see it? And if someone wanted to contact me privately, could they do so? And would they need a Twitter account of their own? - I'm wondering if it's a viable option to hand out my Twitter address rather than my email.
1. Yes. Just follow the accounts dedicated to dispensing that information.
2. Absolutely. They're called "protected accounts." I think those people have to elect to follow your account though, and you'll have to grant them permission to do so.
Quote from: -abe- on August 29, 2018, 01:57:27 PM
1. Yes. Just follow the accounts dedicated to dispensing that information.
2. Absolutely. They're called "protected accounts." I think those people have to elect to follow your account though, and you'll have to grant them permission to do so.
Cheers.
So to confirm, if someone who usually sent me a message by email wanted to send it by Twitter, they'd need their own Twitter account?
Yes.
Cool. Thanks again.
You can tweet at someone, in which case anyone who follows that someone can see your message, or you can send a private message to someone. Similarly, they can tweet at you or send you a message. They would need an account on twitter (which a lot of people have, even me).
When you follow a person who likes twitter you will get a lot of stuff about what they might be doing at any given moment (Wow, great latte at Sams Coffee!). If you follow an organization you will get official announcements. That might include new release announcements from a record label, concert announcements from an orchestra, coupons from a retailer, or tweets from your favorite concert pianists saying how much she enjoyed playing in Barcelona this week. If you follow Donald Trump you will get his effluence-of-consciousness, plus some re-tweets from neo-Nazi web sites. It tends to be noisy. That's the point of Twitter.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on August 29, 2018, 02:15:59 PM
You can tweet at someone, in which case anyone who follows that someone can see your message, or you can send a private message to someone. Similarly, they can tweet at you or send you a message. They would need an account on twitter (which a lot of people have, even me).
When you follow a person who likes twitter you will get a lot of stuff about what they might be doing at any given moment (Wow, great latte at Sams Coffee!). If you follow an organization you will get official announcements. That might include new release announcements from a record label, concert announcements from an orchestra, coupons from a retailer, or tweets from your favorite concert pianists saying how much she enjoyed playing in Barcelona this week. If you follow Donald Trump you will get his effluence-of-consciousness, plus some re-tweets from neo-Nazi web sites. It tends to be noisy. That's the point of Twitter.
Thanks.
Yeah, hearing about great lattes and/or neo-Nazi stuff isn't my idea of a good time.
It's really just for news about events so I don't have to do the rounds of individual websites. My friends can still email me.
You've already received helpful replies. As someone who uses Twitter both for pleasure and for work, I can add a little.
As a general comment, think of Twitter as a worldwide megaphone. For most Twitter accounts (except those with "protected" tweets, viewable only to people you approve as followers), anyone on or off Twitter can see what you post.
To answer your first question directly, yes. Simply follow organizations you like (e.g., music organizations on Twitter) and whatever they tweet will show up in your Twitter feed. I follow a number of orchestras, chamber music groups, and music-related organizations (among many non-music accounts, e.g., film people, photographers). You can follow any number of accounts you like -- thousands -- without tweeting anything yourself.
And to answer your second question, yes. When you set up your account, your choices are either 1) everyone can view your tweets or 2) only people you approve -- "protected" tweets. For contacting you privately, you can set that up in your account, too, e.g., only people you follow (and who follow you back) can message you. Only people also on Twitter can send you private messages through your Twitter account.
I don't see it as a substitute for email -- the direct messages feature is helpful, but the limit for messages is 10,000 characters (as opposed to 280 for tweets). But yes, it might be a "soft" way of making initial contact, and vice versa. In a similar vein, I would never use Facebook's private message feature (Messenger) for business.
Hope this is helpful!
--Bruce
Quote from: Brewski on August 29, 2018, 02:24:08 PM
You've already received helpful replies. As someone who uses Twitter both for pleasure and for work, I can add a little.
As a general comment, think of Twitter as a worldwide megaphone. For most Twitter accounts (except those with "protected" tweets, viewable only to people you approve as followers), anyone on or off Twitter can see what you post.
To answer your first question directly, yes. Simply follow organizations you like (e.g., music organizations on Twitter) and whatever they tweet will show up in your Twitter feed. I follow a number of orchestras, chamber music groups, and music-related organizations (among many non-music accounts, e.g., film people, photographers). You can follow any number of accounts you like -- thousands -- without tweeting anything yourself.
And to answer your second question, yes. When you set up your account, your choices are either 1) everyone can view your tweets or 2) only people you approve -- "protected" tweets. For contacting you privately, you can set that up in your account, too, e.g., only people you follow (and who follow you back) can message you. Only people also on Twitter can send you private messages through your Twitter account.
I don't see it as a substitute for email -- the direct messages feature is helpful, but the limit for messages is 10,000 characters (as opposed to 280 for tweets). But yes, it might be a "soft" way of making initial contact, and vice versa. In a similar vein, I would never use Facebook's private message feature (Messenger) for business.
Hope this is helpful!
--Bruce
Yeah, that's most helpful too. Thanks for taking the time.
And, of course, you can follow as many or as few twitter accounts as you want. If you follow a bunch of orchestras, the effect is similar to putting yourself on their mailing lists. An advantage of twitter is that it is easier to unfollow than to get off those mailing lists.
Twitter is also one of those technologies that is addictive. >:D
I am Twitter, and in this instance -abe- is correct. It is a bit addictive. Also a great way to get news.
What I don't get is those accounts who claim they follow hundreds or even thousands of accounts. I find the hundred or so I follow to be more tyan enough and even then a ignore a lot of tweets.
I have failed to be addicted to Twitter, I think because I don't tweet. Addiction comes when you post something then become obsessed with whether anyone will respond to it.
I think I'll give it a try sooner rather than later.
Cheers, guys.
I have a twitter but I mostly use it to keep up with international politics, world events and the vague amalgamation known as "left twitter" as well as chat with friends and get into arguments over the relative merits of Stalin (generally bad), Mao (generally good), Bernie Sanders (extremely average) and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (should rejoin the Syrian Arab Republic after negotiating some concessions on minority rights). Not particularly intending to give it out to people here because most of you don't share my political sympathies and also I'm not entirely sure I want you guys knowing my real name >.>
But yes it is totally practical to just follow accounts posting information that you want to know—though you can't guarantee that that's all that will appear on your timeline as it'll also show you any tweets they like or retweet—whilst keeping your account locked so only vetted followers can see your own tweets. I did that for about a year, until starting to connect with real life friends & acquaintances.
If you do want more privacy it's worth going through your privacy settings once you create an account just so that, eg, people can't find you by searching your email or phone number, & to control the kind of targeted ads and content twitter will attempt to show you, & there is a setting to prevent Twitter from rifling through your contacts list to show you "people you may know" (note that if you choose this setting Twitter replaces the "people you may know" window with a "find your contacts" window, but it is still probably accessing your contact list for advertising purposes & in case they need to turn it over to the Five Eyes intelligence group. so don't expect too much privacy. use an adblocker, which will at least hide the ads and cut into their margins slightly)
Quote from: amw on August 30, 2018, 04:33:58 AM
But yes it is totally practical to just follow accounts posting information that you want to know—though you can't guarantee that that's all that will appear on your timeline as it'll also show you any tweets they like or retweet—whilst keeping your account locked so only vetted followers can see your own tweets. I did that for about a year, until starting to connect with real life friends & acquaintances.
Good point. I may just consider a new Twitter account; after all,
Gurn tweets yonder.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 30, 2018, 04:37:11 AM
Good point. I may just consider a new Twitter account; after all, Gurn tweets yonder.
If you can build up a decent sized base of followers it's not bad for keeping people up to date on your musical activities. I have a link to my soundcloud on twitter & with ~100 followers I get about three hits worth of traffic per month, so extrapolate from there :p
I'm @davidtwilbanks if anyone wants to put up with my nonsense.
Not sure this was mentioned but you can make lists within Twitter. If you follow a lot of accounts but don't feel like reading everything, you can create a list of those important accounts and just access that.
Quote from: MN Dave on August 30, 2018, 05:00:41 AM
I'm @davidtwilbanks if anyone wants to put up with my nonsense.
And you are another reason I might just dip my toes back into the Twitter pool.
Quote from: MN Dave on August 30, 2018, 05:03:36 AM
Not sure this was mentioned but you can make lists within Twitter. If you follow a lot of accounts but don't feel like reading everything, you can create a list of those important accounts and just access that.
I may just consult you on that.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 30, 2018, 06:35:30 AM
And you are another reason I might just dip my toes back into the Twitter pool.
I may just consult you on that.
Sounds good, guvnah.
Quote from: amw on August 30, 2018, 04:33:58 AMIf you do want more privacy it's worth going through your privacy settings once you create an account just so that, eg, people can't find you by searching your email or phone number, & to control the kind of targeted ads and content twitter will attempt to show you, & there is a setting to prevent Twitter from rifling through your contacts list to show you "people you may know" (note that if you choose this setting Twitter replaces the "people you may know" window with a "find your contacts" window, but it is still probably accessing your contact list for advertising purposes & in case they need to turn it over to the Five Eyes intelligence group. so don't expect too much privacy. use an adblocker, which will at least hide the ads and cut into their margins slightly)
This won't be related to the OP query, but I have a hard and fast rule of no social media apps on my phone (twitter, facebook, etc). I want to prevent them from scraping information from my phone (contact list, etc) which is more extensive than what is available to my web browser. And I always say no when any social media site it asks if it can look at anything (contact list, etc).
Quote from: MN Dave on August 30, 2018, 05:03:36 AM
Not sure this was mentioned but you can make lists within Twitter. If you follow a lot of accounts but don't feel like reading everything, you can create a list of those important accounts and just access that.
No, I didn't know that, but it sounds useful and potentially removes one of the issues making me hesitate to use Twitter.. Cheers.
Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on August 30, 2018, 08:15:32 AM
This won't be related to the OP query, but I have a hard and fast rule of no social media apps on my phone (twitter, facebook, etc). I want to prevent them from scraping information from my phone (contact list, etc) which is more extensive than what is available to my web browser. And I always say no when any social media site it asks if it can look at anything (contact list, etc).
If I had a smartphone I wouldn't be giving apps access to any of that stuff either.
I've added a Twitter link to my profile - at least, I believe so...I thought there might be a special little icon or something? - and although I've no intention of interacting and really only want to use it as a source of updates for concerts and stuff (and I won't be posting any of my work or seeking to view that of others) if anyone still wants to add me to their stream, go right ahead.