7 of the Best Free Linux Twitter Clients

@Steven: An example? I really don't see the use of twitter. It's like a poorly implemented public IM system IMHO.

Heh, I'm with Sander. Like those annoying Tweets that are replying to something someone said somewhere else, but the Tweet response does not quote the OP, so you have no idea what the f they're talking about.

Exactly. Twitter started off as a vague, undefined "microblog" concept which is IMHO a pretty useless idea. If you look at how people actually use twitter then you see it's an IM system where everyone can read all messages. Maybe sort-of like a HTTP powered, syndicated IRC to be more specific.

Scrap twitter and design a service around that latter idea. I'm pretty sure it will be much more useful.

Quoting:It's like a poorly implemented public IM system

Quoting:Like those annoying Tweets that are replying to something someone said somewhere else, but the Tweet response does not quote the OP, so you have no idea what the f they're talking about

That's it, that's what I find so annoying about it. It's apropos nothing. There's no context, unless you were there at the begining. It's like a private conversation overheard i a pub, no, actually it's like snippets of conversation overheard while walking down the street. It's noise for the eyes.

Reading L. Armstrong's Twitter was fun though, seeing him using garbled language to make sure it fits within the Twitter boundaries.

Quoting:I really don't see the use of twitter

Ah, you haven't been reading L. Armstrong's Twitter I guess? After the 'Australian MS Riddle' it was only the second I read, I have to confess. But here's the use: It's the perfect place for just another flamewar, for example calling B. Hinault a w***er. Here's why it's more useful than syndicated IRC: You can do a flamewar, but not discuss libertarianism nor can you dissect the properties of property, because the messages are too short to elucidate on your opinion. It makes following a flamewar less time consuming, which is always a good thing. But I agree, the implementation sucks, because you can't understand who's responding to who and to which message. So understanding a flamewar is impossible on the other hand. It needs 'wave' I guess (Wave is almost HTTP syndicated IRC, but done better than Twitter).

If the whole Mono-debate would have been done on Twitter, I'm pretty sure it would have saved lots of my time. Of course, you can also decide not to read the flamefest and read a book. Note to oneself: Follow your own advice.

if a message sent on Twitter is a tweet, what's the person who sends the message...... aTwit?

TA, you missed azerthoth's reply to your initial comment: "TA, of course it says it in the name. Leave the tweets to the twits."

i did too

ah geez, even the people I like are ignoring my posts.

/drama

Az, I thought HTML took care of that with {whine}{/whine} tags.

Twitter may be annoying in its way, but there's just so much heat on it right now that it's very hard to ignore.

There's quite a community on Twitter, and if I want to know what's going on with any given topic right now, I just do a keyword search on Twitter.

I've blown out a couple print columns on it, and my two main predictions about the near future of Twitter are:

-- Some big company (Microsoft ... Google or ?) will buy Twitter, make everybody at the small S.F.-based company instant millionaires, and then either monetize it or use it as a loss leader into their other services

-- There should be a dozen Twitter clones up and running in the next six months or so. Why buy Twitter when you can code your own (and do it better)?

>> Why buy Twitter when you can code your own (and do it better)?

Twitter better? Are you bitter?

Oh the play on words is both highly entertaining and killing me at the same time...lol! Ack! Ugh! ...

/passes out.

Better Twitter: Bitt Wetter.

Quoting:Why buy Twitter when you can code your own (and do it better)?

Already done.

identi.ca is similar but has more features (xmpp post support, context, etc) and is built on FOSS (so if you really want, you could download the code and run your own private server). It kinda like Twitter, but much geekier (i.e. almost always some FOSS based discussion going on).

Of course both are starting to see spambots, and twitter recently saw the addition of a pay-per-post advertiser on some accounts...

And yes, I play with both a bit. It's nice to follow some people/companies (like Helios/ZaReason) and I'm more likely to toss up a random What-I'm-doing post now and then than to update my blog. lol. Of course I post to identi.ca via xmpp and their system then posts over to Twitter for me.

I should have mentioned identi.ca since we do have that FOSS equivalent

twitter is something old people can be bitter and snide about without using it...and egotistic people can condescend and look down their nose upon those who do use it.

> twitter is something old people can be bitter and snide about without using it...and egotistic people can condescend and look down their nose upon those who do use it.

Rats. Bitten on both counts. Sigh, seen through again. :)

@devnet, twitter is by and large self flagulating. One only needs to look at the dearth and breadth of useless banal feeds about people stopping at the coffee shop. I have seen it used effectively on occasion for things of importance. Coordinating flood relief efforts for example. By and large though, fluff.

@jdixon lol I'm there with ya too...by accounts, I'm too old for technology at 35.

@azerthoth, the internet is self flagulating and breeds narcissism...unfortunately, people still use it :( I suspect the same will remain true for twitter :/