Why do I use Twitter ?

danah boyd asked me why I was using Twitter and what I knew about my Twitter audience (close to 400 followers). Several friends helped me get more through Twitter, thanks. Feel free to answer in comments here if you feel like or your turn to answer the questions on your blog ?

1. Why do you use Twitter? What do you like/dislike about it?

-it lets me stay close to my best friends (who use it) all day long and I like it, regardless of distance
-I learn many news from Twitter because I read it more than the press: I learnt about Yeltsin's death on Twitter, it's like if I had a permanent dinner with friends and they told me.
-it lets me track the people I really want to follow even if I don't know them
-I like its easiness but I wish it would be much more integrated to my phone like Jaiku (or Jaiku simpler and more integrated to IM and the web)
-it is much faster as writing a blog post, as fast as an sms or IM

Twitter for me is like a permanent and mobile chat room with all my friends.

2. Who do you think is reading your Tweets? Is this the audience
you want? Why/why not? Tell me anything you think of relating to
the audience for your Tweets.

who reads:
-close friends who want to stay in permanent touch with me (usually with reciprocity)
-people who have curiosity
-people who want to reach me as they now email is tough and IM gets tougher

why they read it (I asked them on Twitter, a few answered):

Gerard van Schip: because you talk about things that interest me in an easy to digest way.
Rodrigo Sepulveda: 'coz it's more personal than your blog. CLoser to the real Loic :)
Mathieu Thouvenin: Very hard to answer actually. Because I'm curious, because you're doing a lot of things interesting and I want to know about that :)
Charles Nouÿrit: 'cause it's the easiest way to reach you
Net Jacobsson: Twittering is impulsive - blogging is (in most cases) more calculated - with Twitter people are impulsive = more revealing.. Twitter is the REAL NAKED conversation - not blogs
Tom Coates: I read people's posts on Twitter because it makes me feel less lonely at work. Honestly.
JeffClavier (who Tweets all the time but whose last blog post is months away) Am with Rodrigo: Tweets are more personal and mix of presence (where you are), occupation (what you are doing) and thoughts.

3. How do you read others' Tweets? Do you read all of them? Who do
you read/not read and why? Do you know them all?

-I read all of my friends Tweets, all of them
-I do not read all my followers Tweets because I really want to know about the people I know well or want to follow
-I am frustrated that I did not mark as friend everybody I would like to follow that I really like
-I am frustrated to be rude to people who follow me but I don't mark as friends, but I can't manage the time to read the Tweets from hundreds of followers. That's a big frustration for me because I hate to be rude to anybody.
-Marking all followers as friends does not really make sense for me, no time to read them all

4. What content do you think is appropriate for a Tweet? What is
inappropriate? Have you ever found yourself wanting to Tweet and
then deciding against it? Why?

-I can post things I would not be blogging about
>because the info is not interesting enough to post on my main blog
>I don't have enought time to make a serious post, or
>it is too visible with my blog audience audience. Twitter helps me post with a tighter audience a little more intimate things, including "going to the restrooms and of course - back from the restrooms that goes with it".

More seriously, at the first round of the elections in France last week, many of us were twittering the results of the elections before the official time (it is forbidden in France to disclose any poll, result etc before 8PM) in order to hide from the large audience of our blogs, so people reading the tweets had the info, the blog readers (and usually the journalists who were expecting to catch us) did not get it.

5. Are your Tweets public? Why/why not? How do you feel about
people you don't know coming across them? What about people you do
know?

All my Tweets are public, because I like to share what I do or say in public to get feedback and talk to my friends even if they are not with me. I would appreciate an option though to "Tweet this one only to my friends" (maybe it's there).

I am OK for people I don't know to come across them that I do not know, it is actually fun when you meet them that they start telling you about what you have just been doing. I did not have any side effect so far. Of course telling people you're not home is for example an opportunity for thieves to go there for example, fortunately they do not read Tweets (yet?)

6. What do i need to know about why Twitter is/is not working for
you or your friends?

It is not working for many of my friends because it is not obvious to them, it is even more weird as blogging. We should find a way to explain them better.

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