You Are Invited to The Twitter Party: How This Tool Is Used By ColderICE

Magisterrex, then you and I are on the same page. If someone reaches out to you in a Direct Message on Twitter and you blow it off, that COULD BE construed as rude.

Definition via WikiPedia...Rudeness (also called impudence or effrontery) is the disrespect and failure to behave within the context of a society or a group of people's social laws or etiquette.

Give you a true story...I reached out to MC Hammer, who follows me and we have had a few back and forth conversations. After 2 days of no replay, I tapped him again.

So Hammer then replies back and said "My bad, I got 10,000 people following and thousands of DM's come in daily so sometimes even the DM's fall out too"

I guess with Twitter, I just can understand that I won't take it personally knowing that most likely it is not a direct diatribe against me personally. Plus I don't think that fundamentally there should be "laws" that govern the use of Twitter, unless it is agreed on by all parties.

I still stand by my statement that ignoring a tweeted question is an act of rudeness. It may be intentional (the person is simply not valued by you) or unintentional (life got in the way of twitter; is that possible?).

Some of this can be mitigated by using the proper tools. For such a worldwide phenomena, twitter is an extremely cumbersome tool. TweetDeck is a great tool for organizing those tweets that come in at odd hours asking you a question or for your advice. Responding late because you were off doing things of incredible importance is perfectly acceptable. Simply blowing them off as inconsequential is as unacceptable on a social media platform as it is face-to-face.

A quick caveat to end this comment: I'm not talking about general tweets, only @-specific questions or direct messages (but not the automated ones!).

I agree 100% on this one John. This is a 24 hour hotline! Party, social gathering, ect.. Gives a break from the monotony of the day. Plus it is a great promotional tool
Love it.

Phaedra, I agree with that too. My issue, and issue is probably too strong, was that John's tweet kind of came down like a "twitter rule," and I really think that there are no rules, or to be even clearer, a personal set of rules for each user.

I do exactly what you do there, though if I spot something interesting I may actually scroll back the 200 tweets :) Where my personal use, and if I read it right, yours, diverges from John's is in response to @Replies.

John, I do love the party analogy though, it's right on target. It is a party, a party I look forward to as part of most of my working hours. We get to party at work, how cool is that!

Thanks guys, Cliff

I agree with your analogy. I do not consider myself or others to be "on demand" on twitter. TweetDeck is an excellent tool, but not one I keep open all day long. When I do open it, @replies or DM will get my attention quicker.
Scrolling back through 200 tweets is impossible. So, like coming late to the party, I will join in the conversation as it stands when I enter.
Twitter brings much value for me personally, but I do not feel the need to be tied to it, nor would I want to use it for important personal communication.

Phaedra