On Quitting Twitter

A friend of mine quit Twitter recently. I think this is not unreasonable if you think about how Twitter wants to change itself to monetize better. Every move they make is making Twitter worse for most of the heavier users. I’m sympathetic to Teal’s move although their reasons where different.

A Friend Quit Twitter Recently

But I also noticed that in international technology circles many people use their Twitter username as the only digitally means of identification or connection.

I’ve been to the European Ruby Camp (eurucamp) three weeks ago. Most attendees predominently referred to themselves using their Twitter nick either on their name tag or on the eurucamp website.

European Ruby Camp

Some “hip” websites having their focus on user communication like messaging or some form of feed only use the Twitter username as well (I cannot remember the sites off the top of my head).

I also used a couple of iOS apps – which are not Twitter apps – where usernames starting with an @ are automatically linked to Twitter.

Am I Also Quitting Twitter?

Leaving Twitter feels to me like I’m going to isolate myself. Because the most compelling reason of using Twitter is that you can follow people and/or communicating with them directly without asking for email addresses or friendship requests first. A very loose and open network of people.

It’s also easy to find “followers”. Not the Twitter vanity number, but people who want to support your cause and/or work with you on some projects.

As long as I don’t find another way of getting the same from another service I most likely won’t leave.