Question from social apps segment

[rotlex]

First, wanted to say, loved the segment on the social apps from last week. Just got around to listening to it this morning due to work etc., but have a question or two for anyone in the know on this.

I'm a technical guy, I virtualize computer hardware for a living and dabble in the dark arts of all things networking, however, I admit it, TWITTER, while I use it, confuses the crap out of me, LOL. While I have been using it for quite some time, I'm wondering if anyone here can answer what seem to be some simple questions that I can't seem to find solid answers on.

1. What the heck is the difference between using a hash tag# or an @symbol? I mean, they both seem to do the same kind of thing to me.

2. I follow quite a few people, businesses etc. and frankly, the main feed can get so full of crap that I can never find anything. Is there like a filter for this?

3. Is there an easy way to view all the tweets in a feed\conversation? What I mean is, say I'm trying to follow a conversation from the main "home" feed in the twitter app for iphone. I click\touch the story in the feed and it takes me directly to the tweet. Great. However, then it seems I need to click on the "tweets" link or somewhere else to actually see all the stuff being talked about. (Maybe that's what the #discover area is for)?

Anyway, I know, number 3 is probably too much to type out in a forum. Maybe I should just ask if there is a document, or site out there somewhere that explains what are probably some simple procedures!

Bottom line is, I find it hard, particularly with Twitter, to actually find what I'm looking for, or add to any conversations that I do find. It seems the only thing I can ever "see" are the tweets\posts started by the original party.

OK, yeah, like I said, I'm confused over Twitter. It can't be THAT complicated can it?

Thanks, even for ignoring this too long of a post!

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

First, wanted to say, loved the segment on the social apps from last week. Just got around to listening to it this morning due to work etc., but have a question or two for anyone in the know on this.

I'm a technical guy, I virtualize computer hardware for a living and dabble in the dark arts of all things networking, however, I admit it, TWITTER, while I use it, confuses the crap out of me, LOL. While I have been using it for quite some time, I'm wondering if anyone here can answer what seem to be some simple questions that I can't seem to find solid answers on.

1. What the heck is the difference between using a hash tag# or an @symbol? I mean, they both seem to do the same kind of thing to me.

@ is when you are talking to someone, or a company. So if you were going to tweet Pete, you would write "@petewerner, can't wait for the show today" (It's also a way to tag someone on Facebook)

# is when you want to (either ironically or not) categorize your tweet so that all mentions of the subject show up in a list about that subject. So, if you wanted to tweet about the Magic Kingdom, and might later want to go back and see who else was talking about MK, you would write "@petewerner, the lines at #magickingdom are crazy today" Some people make crazy hashtags to be funny like #magickingdombagcheckstakeforever, or stuff like that

 

[pdarrah]

In response to your #2 question:

It may work better for you to add businesses and such that you are interested in to a List. Your main feed is going to show you most* tweets by anyone that you follow. A list only shows you the tweets from the people you have added to the list. You do NOT need to follow someone to add them to a list (unless they have a locked/private account). An example of one of my lists is one for news - I have a bunch of news sources I like listed and it gives me a quick way to check for breaking news or interesting stories. I don't bother to actually follow any of those twitters so they only show up on the list. One can also make a list for people that you do follow but have trouble finding their tweets in your feed - an example would be a "family members" list or a "close friends" list.

* why I said you see MOST tweets from those you follow - If someone you follow tweets directly (using the @username at the start of their tweet) to someone you do NOT follow, you will not see that tweet in your feed. If they tweet directly to someone your DO follow, then you will see it. It is easy to see this in action if you go look at a user's full list of tweets for someone you follow. You will see the tweets that showed up in your feed earlier, but you will ALSO see those @username tweets that are to people you do not follow that you did not see in your feed. Sometimes, if someone is tweeting to someone but they want to be certain everyone who follows them will see the tweet, they will add a period is front of the @ - the message will look like " .@johndoe that pic you posted was great - everyone should go look at it!"

It sounds like you use Web Twitter or the Twitter app from twitter for a phone, so I'm afraid I can't answer much for you on how to follow conversations and such. I much prefer using other apps for twitter (I'm currently trying out Janetter as my old favorite Tweetdeck for Android is being killed off by Twitter ) I like twitter apps that give me multiple columns that I can configure as I like - 1 for my feed, 1 for my "mentions" (any tweet that includes @myusername) 1 each for a couple lists I like easy access to, etc. Most of those have a "show conversation" link of some sort in a tweet that is part of an exchange and I can see the whole thing by clicking on it. (I have also used Echofon on my iTouch and it is also a decent app with columns)

 

[rotlex]

Thanks for the replies on this. I think I'm actually "getting it" more this morning than I have in the past. Also, low and behold, I came across this site, which has some info I was looking for. (Can't believe I never stumbled across it before).:

http://www.hashtags.org/

Thanks - I'll keep learning!!!!