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After using Twitter for almost a month now, I think it’s rather interesting and will keep using it. I seem to gain about 10-12 followers a week somehow. I have to admit that I don’t know most of the people following me, which is actually a rather strange experience for me.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is what’s known as a “micro-blogging” platform. It’s like a blog, but you can only post 140 characters at a time. And some of that space is taken up by your own name. You can find out more at http://twitter.com. You can search for me as “thetoolwiz” and follow me. (I don’t post a whole lot.)

If you’re looking for a handy guide to working with twitter, try this: TwitterProfits . In this post I’m reflecting on some of my experience using Twitter for the past month.

I notice that there are people who just love to tweet all kinds of things. I stopped following a couple of folks who were constantly saying meaningless things, like they were getting a cup of coffee, going for a walk, talking with a friend. Willie, for example, mentions stuff like that from time to time, which is fine; but these people … that’s ALL they’d say.

I’ve noticed is there are people who see themselves as “tutors”. Jason Moffett and Dr. Mani fit into this category. They post lots of stuff with links and whatnot. Jason is a little off-beat for me. I find that many of the posts are intended to get you to click a link, but they don’t say what it is. I don’t like TinyURL — I like to be able to get a sense of where I’m going and what to expect.

Many times it turns out to be the exact same stuff. That’s fine, but if I don’t know, I tend to NOT want to click rather than waste time seeing the same thing again.

There are people who are acting like “promoters”. Willie, Dr. Mani, Ed Dale, and Ken McArthur fall into this category.

There are people who are just sharing slices of their daily lives, like Yvonne and Michelle. But it’s more interesting than, “having a latte”. There’s no suspense in “latte-land”, but I can’t tell if Yvonne is living on an island or about to be swept away by a hurricane. I just know she’s awfully wet most of the time.

Something that I find is very curious. Some of the more prolific posters often pose questions or make requests. That’s fine but … take Dr. Mani for example, who is following 35 people; when he makes a request of his 1500 followers, how are they supposed to respond? He can’t hear them.

So one weakness I’ve found in Twitter is when people publically respond to tweets they get, and don’t realize that: (a) the other person may not be following them, so they don’t get the reply; and (b) the people who DO get the tweet are only getting half the conversation. If that happens often, I’m awfully tempted to unfollow these people.

Twitter might benefit from a way that alerts people that someone is trying to reach them without requiring them to be a follower, as long as they aren’t specifically blocked. I do find that when I follow someone, they frequently follow me back, and often allow me to contact them directly.

Ken McArthur made several tweets asking for help with something. I had a useful answer, and had to contact him via email because he wasn’t following me.

One guy I know, Caleb, was following Keith Wellman. Keith tweeted about a problem he was having and this guy had a solution, but no way to reach Keith. I happen to be connected to Jeff Wellman, Keith’s dad; we met at JVAlert in January. I contacted Jeff and alerted him, and got Caleb and Keith hooked up.

So one strength that’s not being leveraged yet is the “six degrees of freedom” thing, like these last two examples. In Ken’s case, I happened to have his email addy; in the second, I knew someone who knew someone.

Perhaps we’ll see a tool appear soon that lets us make a query that tells us exactly what path we need to take to reach someone we don’t know how to reach.

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