On Twitter... and Douchebaggery

Just the other day, fed up with the Social Media whores and blatant promotionalism I'm seeing on Twitter, I mentioned that "There is a fine line between promotion and douchebaggery. Some step way over it."

Douchebaggery.

I think it's a good word - and I'm glad to see it become sort of the standard term for the folks who are bastardizing Twitter. The folks at Tweetsum even provide you with a DBI, or Douche Bag Index of your followers so you can determine if they are worth the effort to follow back.

I've always been pretty vocal about my disdain for folks gaming the system, the mass follow / unfollow schemes, the auto Direct Messages, the perception that all follows need to be reciprocal etc - in general the douchebaggery of a large portion of the Twitter population.

But while I have shared scattered thoughts on message boards and on Twitter itself, it's Adam Darowski that presents what is the definitive guide on the subject - How To Use Twitter and Not Be a Douchebag

As if I wasn't already a big fan of Adam and his insane markup skills, this fantastic article should be required reading at registration.

If you use Twitter, you should read this. If you are thinking about using Twitter, you should read this. If you think you might be a douchebag - you should definitely read this.

SB

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I stopped using Twitter awhile ago, fed up with the same douchebaggery that you hold in contempt!

I don't need it anyway!

#1 nat (Homepage) on 2009-05-28 21:33 (Reply)

I've stopped following people who follow me on twitter. Since I don't tweet much, obviously those following me are just whores getting my name from some automated service. If I recognize the name, then I follow back. Otherwise, I ignore all.

#2 Turnip (Homepage) on 2009-06-23 12:42 (Reply)

I never did understand why people are so obsessed with their numbers that they resort to such tactics, glad you are not falling prey to it.

I look at the profiles of people who follow me via the great emails I get from @topify and can usually tell right away if they might be an interesting addition to my feed. Most aren't it seems so I just ignore them.

thanks for the visit and comment

SB

#2.1 Scott (Homepage) on 2009-06-23 14:06 (Reply)

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment: Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
: Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry