I’ve been on twitter for a while, circa 2007, a year or so after its inception.  I was what you’d call “an early-ish adapter” and in my time on the hip “micro-blogging site” ( i remember when that term was coined) I’ve seen trend after trend; Some I’m indifferent to, others are annoying and others are extremely annoying.

I mean, It’s just a few things that grind my gears, here goes:

Cryptic Tweets: People who only tweet strange, enigmatic thoughts that no one ever gets. Do you think you’re cool?

IM Conversations: Yes, It’s your twitter account, you do with it what you want, but there are unwritten rules and something called “netiquette”.  Twitter was never meant to be used as  a chat-room ( ipso facto, the 140 character limit).  Some people constantly @ each other talking about things no one can relate to, because it was never meant for twitter. Blackberry Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Chat and a myriad of others are there if you need to have prolonged conversations with a friend, UTILIZE them because nobody cares about your extremely mundane conversations.  Then you wonder why you have 50 followers; that last bit is a precursor to annoyance #3.

That annoying, “Please follow me” phrase: Please, don’t beg someone to follow you on Twitter, It’s really pathetic.  If you are genuinely interesting or actually have some substantial tweets then people will follow you, albeit  maybe not that person you’d want to follow you, but that’s fine; different strokes for different folks, but people will follow you.

Retweeting/replying done wrong: I remember when “retweeting” made its debut on Twitter.  The users created it, until twitter decided to formalize it. I remember how people originally used it.  People retweeted your tweet for many reasons, maybe because they liked it, because it was a tweet that was particularly helpful etc.  In recent time many Jamaicans have flocked to twitter and as simple as it is, not many people know how to use the re-tweet/reply function.  They are distinctly different.  A brief tutorial:

The tweet above is how i see most people reply to to tweets. They “retweet” the original tweeter’s tweet and put their response in front. Occasionally this is fine, especially when you want to save people from clicking the “in reply to” option, but most people, i find don’t know any better, so they always do it thinking it’s the only way to respond to a tweet, but it’s not.

Now this is the right way to respond to someone’s tweet. It’s really easy. Just find the tweet you’re referring to on whatever client you’re using whether it be Tweetdeck, Seesmic, or even Twitter web use the reply function and twitter will automatically reference the tweet automagically.  When the person who you replied to receives your response they’ll know what tweet you’re referring to because they’ll see the “in reply to username” as highlighted above which avoids the “what are you talking about” tweet.  It’s a really easy concept to grasp, So if @waynjonesjnr is to click ” in reply to Waynejonesjnr he’ll promptly see that i was referring to his tweet about cigarette smoking women.

People who do blast #FF’s- On twitter it’s tradition to recommend tweeters  that you like for other people to follow. This is called “Follow Friday, or #FF for short. Follow Fridays are done by putting the #FF hashtag in front of the tweets followed by the people you want other people to follow. e.g: #FF @nigel_thomas @ryanmattis, @waynejonesjnr, @rtrowe, @iamsbee (btw, these are all cool people, you should follow them), but i find this way of “mass #FF’ing”  annoying and ineffective, instead i find it a lot more substantial to write a blurb about the person(s) you want other people to follow instead. e.g: #FF @ryanmattis Fellow techie, blogger and full-time pessimist. You’ll find that people appreciate this method as opposed to the “blast method” that i mentioned above, they’re also more likely to get followed; Quality over quantity i say.

Finally, Tweeting in CAPS: Anybody who’s an internet fanatic or even someone who occasionally uses the internet knows that when you type in caps it signifies that you’re screaming/shouting or showing your disgust for something. Typing/tweeting: “I’M SO LOVING MY BREAKFAST RIGHT NOW”  in caps  is wrong, tweeting using caps indefinitely is annoying and not to mention noobish, come on, get with it. Read more about Online etiquette here

Unfortunately many people i follow on twitter are guilty of my peeves; hoping they’ll all read this and apply it to their day-to-day tweeting so that me and everyone else can have a more pleasant twitter experience. *crosses fingers*