About My Twitter Hiatus

Despite my heavy usage, I’m on Twitter Hiatus
I’m known for being a very active twitter user, recent applications have tracked my daily usage from being 20-30 tweets on average. I’m not like other twitter users, as I have a very specific method in which I use the tool. However, two weeks ago today, I stopped using twitter, and announced that I’m on temporary Twitter hiatus.

Twitter shows its weaknesses
Why? I’m recalibrating my media plan, and trying to shift and shake things up. First of all, there’s a few things that have caused me to evaluate my media strategy: 1) the lack of context in 140 characters, 2) unthreaded discussions makes it difficult to track conversations in one place, and 3) unsymmetrical networks, meaning if you’re not following someone, what they say creates gaps in the conversation. All of these reasons create challenges on making twitter an effective conversation tool. Perhaps most sadly, I’ve observed the cracks getting deeper during crisis and incidents like motrin moms, sponsored blog posts, and mumbai attacks.

Now at the end of the year, I spent more time in the real world with friends and family, and have had an opportunity to step back and think things through. As a result, I’m finding solace in tools that allow for greater context like this blog, and on Friendfeed.

Time to Refocus
Next, I’m trying to focus more on energizing(word of mouth) and supporting (community) this year, rather than just publishing, in an effort to be more efficient, and to help the community during this troublesome economy. Shel Israel has noticed that despite my inactivity in Twitter (which I still monitor, of course) that the community around me continues to grow. I’m not sure why or how that is happening, but it’s an interesting phenomenon.

You should evaluate how you spend your time
I encourage you during this downtime to evaluate and rethink how you use these social technologies. You should think about the following questions: how has the environment around you changed? how was technology changed? what’s your goal? Are you using the tools in the right way to meet these three questions? You have limited inventory (time) and the world is always changing, are you sure you’re investing your resources in the right way? There’s nearly unlimited tools out there, take the time to think it through.

Stay tuned, I have a new project launching
What to expect from me in the future? With my time saved on not interacting as much in the conversation, I’ve been focusing my efforts on a resource that will help people understand the skills needed during a recession, and how to get jobs –stay tuned people.

Update: How 20 days off did me good.