It’s official. I am now a twitterhead (ab)user, and I’m a ditz. (My twitter user ID is mjflynt.)
Some time ago I posted a blog titled “35 things I would Live about you!” which was a list of 35 things I would like to see added to Windows Live. Here is item number 24:
Web activities currently have a setting "Show updates in the what's new list," and I would like to see this broken into two parts. First would be "Show updates in the what's new with my network list," and the second "Show updates in the what's new with me list." Having this would give a finer grade of control as to what appears on my Profile page and what appears on your Home page. This would allow people who would like to (ab)use twitter (or other things like FriendFeed :) ) to not advertise their updates to everyone on there network but yet still have this information on their own profile page and possibly, maybe, hopefully on its own tab. So, some of us could have our own profile filled with gazillions of tweets but not blitz our network neighbors with updates. Anyone else interested in my tweets could come to my profile to see them. And then I could turn FriendFeed back on to display on just my profile!! And Live would be so good yet again!
In my “FriendFeed is your Friend” post, I described a method to add a collection of feed updates to your “What’s new” feed. After discovering that I was really spamming everyone with stuff many didn’t want to see, I decided that I would still like to see it. So, I thought that having an option to show on my “What’s new” but not on yours (on your homepage) would be a great idea. And I thought that it could apply to twitter too. Well, that option is there - already.
But the instructions I gave on how to do set the Web Activity up were precisely what you shouldn’t do to accomplish this. Amazingly, no one caught me and corrected it. Consequently, I turned FriendFeed off because it was “spamming” my “What’s new.” Nobody, including me, liked it.
I discovered this “fix” when adding twitter to my Live Profile just today. I hadn’t thought about Web Activities for awhile, and so I was reinventing the set up for myself. And, all at once, I realized that the Windows Live team already added feature request number 24, and the manner in which it is implemented is superior to my suggestion and more consistent with the look and feel of Windows Live. And they did it before I even asked for it! I love it when designers are psychic. Well, they still could add the tabs – hint – hint!!
My instructions for FriendFeed made a faulty assumption that you would want everyone to see your updates. This might be true for some people with small networks. So, I suggested that you select “Everyone” in the “Share with” for the Web Activity for custom blog. The truth of the matter is, you can narrow the advertisement's scope down a lot. If you have a large network you probably wouldn’t want to update everyone with this Web Activity. As for me, I now have mine set to “Just me.” So now I can track a lot of interesting things through this one Web Activity, and I don’t have to bother any of you at all.
How does this apply to twitter? Well, I certainly know how much I disliked having my “What’s new” feed filled to overflow with one sided messages that made no sense to me. And I know many people have turned the twitter Web Activity off completely to hide these updates. But that’s not an option for me. I actually find some of them interesting and valuable. Now that I’m guilty too, I am limiting the scope of who will see my twitters. I really don’t want to be a hypocritical twitter (ab)user.
So, now that I tweet, I am subjecting (for now) some of my friends to my twitterings. But, I am not subjecting my entire network to them. I am only sharing them with other fellow twitterers. I have created a special category in Person called “twitter buddies.” This category is already tied to the permissions of the twitter Web Activity. All I have to do is add you to that category, and you’ll see my tweets! And if you’re not in it you won’t.
Oh, I am loosely using the term “twitterhead” to mean anyone who uses twitter. Not necessarily for someone who lives for it. I myself have just started using it, and I may decide that my original assumptions about it are correct. We’ll save that for another post.
