If there's anything the web doesn't like, it's rules.
Robert Scoble (former Microsoft blogger and now vice president of media development at PodTech) explains how he breaks all ten supposedly emerging rules of Twitter.
1 Never send more than 140 characters.
2 Never tweet more than five times a day.
3 Never follow more than 300 people.
4 Never follow anyone who isn't a "real" friend.
5 Don't assume other Twitters have the same experience.
6 Don't post across multiple tweets.
7 The Twitter question is "what are you doing" not "what do you think about x?".
8 Follow one person for every 10 who follows you.
9 If others say you're spamming, listen to them.
10 Don't put things into Twitter that aren't designed for Twitter.
Scoble won't use his blog for longer response because "what happens in Twitter should stay in Twitter". I'd add that in the UK we're all conditioned to write 165-word texts, so it's harder for us. To most of the rest, his response is just "sue me".
He uses twitter like a 24/7 chat room.
"I get 20 new Tweets inbound EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY. It's like a 24/7 chat room for me. But for you? Most of you only follow 30 people, so to you it's more akin to instant messaging with just your friends. If you subscribe to a noisy jerk, like me, you'll get overrun. Me? I just tell my friends who complain that they don't have enough friends."
This is from the guy who Twittered the birth of his son.
Another rule should probably be something about not accidentally texting Twitter the message you meant to send to your other half.
Or was that just me?
I interviewed Ev Williams at Twitter on Friday, and he made some good points about how Twitter can be used by news organisations for reporting, not just for publishing links to their news stories. More on that tomorrow.
Source: Scobleizer
Technorati Tags: RobertScoble, Twitter
