The Good Computer Guy Blog

1 - If it helps you, I've never heard of it.
XO
Trace

2 - Nice post... I only see updates from the people I'm following, so there's not a lot of clutter. Alert tweets from the police, etc., are sometimes handy, but otherwise, I agree, what's all the fuss?

3 - Hey Bill. Bummer you're still not able to find good use from Twitter. I've been having a lot of fun with it personally.

It sounds to me like you're trying too hard and you're looking for it to pay off immediately. With twitter, like blogging, it takes time to build your community. You have to give just as much as you take from Twitter.

You shouldn't expect to get a good answer from people with one random quesiton and ony 45 followers. Twitters power is in the numbers as far as gewtting good feedback is concerned. You'll need to spend time building a bigger group of followers. But, sometimes, you have to expect that no one will happen to be reading their twitter stream when you post your quesiton. Post the question again later in the day or the next day and you may have better luck.

I check my twitter feed about once or twice a day from work. I'll see what the last couple dozen tweets from people I'm following are. Usually, there's one or two interesting articles or useful links. For me, that's worth the two minutes it takes me to read through the list of tweets.

I'll also take another 5 minutes re-tweeting interesting stuff, posting a link to my latest blog post, and replying to any of the tweets that I feel like I should reply to. Sometimes I get a response, sometimes I don't, but I find the more I reply to someone, the more they notice mer and the more likely they are to respond to my tweets.

The best part is, I can take a week off and jump right back into twitter after a week and not miss a beat....everyone is still there tweeting away.

Anyway, I felt I had to defend why I find value in Twitter, but I think you're trying too hard to make it work for you. Just go with the flow, use it when you feel like it, and I have a feeling it will grow on you over time.

4 - Oh, I plan on using it when I feel like it - which is about to be just about never. I keep hearing about how it's a great resource. Yet, as you say, no one may happen to be reading the stream when I post. What on earth is the value there?? I'm generally able to answer questions in seconds or minutes with a little Googling. I just wasted more time this morning reading/watching about how people follow 10's of thousands of other people. And I remain fairly convinced that it's a huge waste of time to tweet or be followed. I was open to it, but there's just no value there. <shrug> This video sums it up nicely (and hilariously): { Link }

5 - Well, you gave it a shot and it wasn't your thing. That's more than I can say for some other people who just refuse to give stuff like that a try. Your an adventurous man, Bill!