Spell My Twitter User Name Correctly! @kanter

My twitter name is @kanter, not @bethkanter or@bethcantor or @bethcanter or @bethkantor or @kantor or @cantor or @canter.     I wonder if Marc Canter has that problem on Twitter? 

That relates to "Spell thy Twitter name correctly or replies don't work" or Commandment #9 from a post by Phillie Casablanca that includes the "Ten Commandments of Twitter."  I discovered that post via  a tweet from SteveGarfield) which lead to a reflection Paul Downey, a brilliant post describing two different patterns of Twitter use behavior.  I'd love to see an online quiz that offers a set of questions and then tells you what type you are.   I'm not sure, but there may be more than two patterns or profiles of twitter users.

Twit

A Twit sees Twitter as a presence service. Twits love the ambient intimacy twitter affords with their friends, and tweet to build a meaningful permanent record. They strive to entertain, to be profound. Twits are often interested in adding metadata such as tags, plusplus and  locations which may be farmed, searched and annotated later. A twit uses an @reply primarily to reference a user for the benefit of their other followers, and use a direct message to communicate with someone where their followers are unlikely to be interested in the conversation. A twit is always considerate to their followers, knowing that each message may potentially be SMS’d to hundreds of people. Twits always think about the question “What are you doing?”. A good twit will make you laugh, make you cry but above all feel connected.


Twerp

A Twerp sees Twitter as a conversation. It’s irc, only with free SMS thrown in. Most twerp updates start with an @ and are meaningless unless you too are a twerp. Twerps often follow 1000’s, because that’s the best way of dealing with other twerps and seeing their asynchronous replies. A Twerp will reference someone whose updates are locked with something like “@BigTwerp cool!”,  Really inconsiderate twerps use services such as seesmic to pump noise at their followers, repeatedly trumpet blog postings, endlessly muse on how they rock. They see twitter as just another way to “up their ante”. Twerps often fail to embrace twitter’s 140 character limit; they’re writing memos when they should be writing Haikus. To a twit, a twerp’s updates are just intrusive line noise. 

He pointed to a post by Phillie Casablanca that includes the "Ten Commandments of Twitter"

1. Thou shalt not tweet more than 20 times a day. This has a detrimental effect on everyone else's ambient intimacy with their group.
2. Thou shalt assume that everyone following you is following 150 people or less (because they probably are).
3. Thou shalt not tweet more than 10 times in an hour*. That's what blogging is for.
4. Thou shalt not treat Twitter like a private chat room*. That's what IRC is for.
5. Thou shalt not engage in lengthy one-on-one conversations in Twitter*. That's what Instant Messaging is for.
6. Thou shalt not forget that the question being asked is "What are you doing?".
7. Thou shalt not be too boastful or pompous. Arrogance is offensive in real life, and Twitter is no different.
8. Thou shalt learn how to use @, L:, D: and #, -- and ++. If you're not sure, watch others.
9. Thou shalt type people's usernames correctly (e.g. @Casablanca); otherwise the 'replies' function doesn't work.
10. Thou shalt welcome new users publicly and with enthusiasm; this helps them make connections so they can share the excitement.

*Unless thou art being very funny or entertaining.

I might modify #6 to include the question, "What has your attention?"  I endorse number 9.

Which kind of Twitter user are you?  Are there other types?  How would you modify the ten commandments?

Comments

[Connie Bensen]

Hi Beth,
You can easily change your Twitter username. I have.

I have trouble with 'cbensen' too. I could use connieb in Twitter I suppose, but the branding is important I think.

I bought both url's conniebensen.com & conniebenson.com for this reason too. :)

[Andre]

This is good stuff Beth! I try to DM more when it becomes a little more conversational (as in the definition of a Twit). I guess it comes down to following people who follow the "Twitter rules" that you abide by e.g. unfollow people who are too chatty

[Beth Kanter]

@conniebenson Thanks for the tip.

@Andre It is easy to unfollow ...

[Rupert]

I found Paul and Phillie's posts funny - and then a bit irritating. I guess the idea of being labeled or being told how I should *not* use Twitter makes me feel a bit Ugh.

Rules. PAH. I guess I tweet quite a lot. I mix up a lot of different uses of Twitter. I've made a lot of friends here and got to know some people quite well by NOT 'always thinking about the question “What are you doing?”' or 'what has your attention?'. "Always"? What??

I use @s frequently - not usually in a sustained way. Because I'd rather have short exchanges out in the open that others can join in (or get pleasure or knowledge from) than use bloody DMs. Which irritate me much more than @s. I get an email AND and SMS from a D. And there's more pressure to reply to a DM when a casual @ would have sufficed. I just automatically brain-filter out most @s to other people that aren't relevant. Along with a bunch of other stuff.

People can unfollow me if they want - I don't worry - that's how it works. People use it and want to read it in very different ways.
There's room for all kinds of use. Those who fit the definition of Twit or use Twitter more conservatively or use tags or locations are not *at all* more worthy than others in my eyes. I disagree with all the commandments except 7, 9 and maybe 10. I know I shouldn't feel annoyed. I know they're a fun riff on the Ten Commandments for linkbait. But I do feel a little bit grrr reading them and the Twit/Twerp definitions. Maybe I should just get over myself and go to bed.
http://twitter.com/ruperthowe

[Sue Waters]

Sorry Beth I disagree with the ten commandants.

I think twitter is a very personal application, in many ways like iGoogle, and each person uses it suit their own personal needs. As such individuals will have their own commandants they follow, abide and use to select people they choose to follow. For someone new to twitter making them feel that it is inappropriate to tweet more than 20 times in an hour, or limit your number of tweets per day would be off putting. However I am sure the 10 commandants were most likely written in jest. The simple answer is that if we step out of line in the twitter network people do let us know politely, or if we tweet to much for their liking then unfollow us.

[Jeffrey]

I can't imagine what has brought this post on!

I can't type, so I instead copy and paste the name in Twitter when I want to reply. Odd, I did not see that mentioned anywhere above.

[Beth Kanter]

Jeffrey: I do the same because I want to make sure I've gotten their name correct - but was focused on misspelled twitter user name and missing tweets that I didn't think to reflect on my own process. Thanks so much for pointing that out.

[Paul Downey]

I'm sorry if people found our posts irritating, but then again if you do, you're probably self-identifying as a twerp :-)

The word "commandments" is definitely tongue-in-cheek, a must read if this interests you is JP's Post:

http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2008/01/06/freewheeling-about-social-media/

[Phil Whitehouse]

Hi Beth, thanks for your passionate response! For what it's worth, I made the decision to call them commandments to be provocative and illicit reaction.

Sue > I agree the system is self-correcting to some degree. I've unfollowed people because I got fed up wading through so many nonsensical tweets and couldn't see the ones I wanted. But I think that's a real shame, I'd much rather follow what these people were saying, and wanted to let them know why I'd unfollowed them. Call it gentle encouragement. And a good debate too, I think!

The sixth commandment ("Thou shalt not forget that the question being asked is “What are you doing?”) was really aimed at the people making long statements across multiple tweets. I break this one all the time, I often just write what I'm thinking, or write something funny....perhaps I should drop that one? If you or your readers feel strongly about it, please feel free to post against the updated blog posting at:

http://philwhitehouse.blogspot.com/2008/01/ten-commandments-of-twitter.html

Cheers,
Phil

[Sue Waters]

Hi Phil - I guessed that both your posts were tongue-in-cheek. People did pick me up in the early days when I didn't use @ enough and as I have said I have come to accept that if they don't like how much I twitter they will let me know or unfollow. If I look closely at your commandants- Interestingly enough some of the people I follow twitter all day - really doesn't bug me as I have worked out how to effectively manner their chatter. I just did a check of my twitter network - checking a sample of 40 people I follow 13 of the people I follow -- follow less than 150 people. At a rough guess majority of my network would follow more than 200 people, with quite a few following more than 500 and a few limit their number to around 100. If you use Snitter you will have no problems writing their name as it does it for you :). Keep up your good work with Twitter.