Twitter Is A Useful Tool
Long, long ago, I was** an internet snob.
“Twitter? Are you kidding me?” I’d scoff. “Are you serious? Twitter is like the new home for AIMspeak and livejournalling emo children. Its popularity is a sign of how selfish and self centered our fragile generation has become. People think their two thousand followers totally care when you got coffee this morning or whether your work day sucks. It just plays into your belief that the world cares about your most mundane thoughts about nothing in particular…”
I’m a little bit elitist.
The character limit is the worst part. First of all, it encourages poor typing. And secondly… what the hell can you say in 140 characters?
Turns out you can say one hell of a lot.
** Side note: This does not mean that I have ceased to be an internet snob…
Look, I Got Addicted By Accident! Really!
I blame wow blogs. Months ago, I noticed that all my favorite wow bloggers had twitter feeds. Hmm. They were saying stuff I wanted to respond to. So I signed up for Twitter.
I can’t really watch a conversation without chiming in. So I started talking. A lot. Then I started following everyone that bloggers recommended on Follow Fridays, chiming into more conversations, following more useful people …
Unsurprisingly, I’m now a complete twitter addict. I too tweet about my coffee in the morning and how much work sucks. I gleefully typo things, misspell them, and mangle the english language in my unending quest to communicate the most mundane shit to the unfortunate souls who have chosen to follow me.
Of course, I also tweet about WoW a lot. Especially on raid nights.
Wow, Raiding, and Tweeting
If I’m having trouble with something – or if the guild is arguing about something – I like to tab out and throw a question at twitter.
This is the beauty of WoW Twitter. Ask a question, and you’ll get responses from a ton of people from all fields of play in the game. Casual players, levelers, RP addicts and writers, altoholics with ten 80s, PVP bloggers… and, of course, all manner of raider from the casual pug champion to raiders from world ranked guilds who’ve had H LK on farm for months.
It’s like forums – but faster!
Don’t Tell My Raid, But This Suggestion Came From Twitter
Take Wednesday night for an example.
Rhidach is gone. Which means, we hit a ridiculous fight – Heroic Lich King – for the first time on 25 without our raid leader and main tank. I had NO 25 experience on this fight, and I was in that sticky “Not really the raid leader, but the main tank, and the one putting the strategy together” position (what the hell? Was I raid leading? I don’t even know).
Needless to say, I forgot some shit.
Guess who forgot that druids (post-4.0) could Soothe the enrages off the Shamblers in phase 1? Guess who forgot that Shamblers do a second, untranq-able enrage at 20% health? Yeah.
Thank you, twitter. All I did was tab out to QQ that we couldn’t keep our shambler tank alive, and in response I got tons of useful suggestions. Mainly from FeistTheRogue, someone every single raider on twitter needs to follow, like, right now.
My point: don’t laugh when I link twitter or mention it in the course of my raiding posts. It’s a great tool! If you try it, you might find you like it.
Now, BRB. I need to tweet about how much work sucks again.
Enveloping Shadows on Twitter
Follow Friday, for the uninitiated, is a twitter phenomenon where you list people you recommend your followers to follow. You mark it with #FF. I personally think you should be following my guild:
- Rhidach (@Rhidach)
- Anafielle (@Anafielle)
- Antigen (@hazmacewillraid) – ret paladin, occasional third tank
- Ildara (@IldaraTheDruid) – tree druid
- Ichioso (@OneOfManyIchi) – boomkin
- Katmandu (@katmandu) – priest
- Palehoof (@Palehoof) – hunter, Blizzard forums MVP
Antigen has a ret paladin blog at Haz Mace Will Raid, and the illustrious Palehoof has begun to post over at Blizz Planet.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Armory Feed
@resonate1794
12 November 2010 at 1:23 pm #
Most of the people I know that still make fun of Twitter think that it’s nothing but “here’s-what-I’m-doing-now” type posts. When you realize that nobody really uses it for that anymore, you begin to understand what usefulness it actually has.
The addictiveness of Twitter is totally true. I, too, was skeptical at first, but now here I am three years later (yes, it’s been three years– I want to say my first tweet was about Karazhan loot) with 20,000 tweets or however many I have now.
You meet a lot of interesting people on Twitter and want to keep hanging out with them, like one big glorious chatroom! I love it.
Pike’s last blog ..I Shouldn’t Press My Luck
Here here!
Was actually considering writing a post about Twitter but.. I was driving at the time and I forgot what I wanted to write now because I was too busy singing along to the radio.. It’ll come back to me soon!
Jaedia’s last blog ..Felt A Bit Of An Idiot- But
@HanaMoonfire
12 November 2010 at 1:41 pm #
I admti I didn’t care about Twitter until I realized so many of the bloggers I read were using it. I don’t tweet terribly much, but it’s fun keeping up with you all. :)
Hana’s last blog ..Paladin Gut Feeling About Healing in a Post-40 World
Would you forgive me if I said I thought this was a Rhidach original until you pointed out he was gone? I then thought, “holy shite, this is Anafielle.” There are times when it’s hard to tell the 2 of you apart.
Great post! Thanks to following you I was able the get good advice from intelligent people on buiding a PC.
Same here. I guess I thought the description of an internet snob somehow fitted well for rhidach ;-) No offense though :-P
Good post ^^
edit:
Although I must admit that on the second read-through its pretty obvious that it is indeed anafielles writing style :-s
My story mirrors yours exactly. I saw people talking about Twitter in blogs and heard my coworkers talk about it every day. I scoffed at the idea of a Twitter account.
Now that I’ve actually tried it…I kinda like it. It is useful, I’ve asked questions and gotten answers almost immediately. It also gives me something to occupy myself with on the commute into work.
Jasyla’s last blog ..Shared Topic- Fringe Benefits of Bringing a Resto Druid to Raid
Thanks to you, I now have one as well. Long I have resisted… well, I stalked your twitters a bit anyway :D
Following some of you guys then. :)
Xerian’s last blog ..Ive got my drake!
I’m gonna tweet about this post to my guildies right now
I had, and have had for a long while, the same attitude toward Twitter. Lately that’s been changing, because it seems like half the people I talk to (both WoW and RL peoples) seem to use it as a pretty serious communication tool. It’s been eroding my defenses, and I think I’m about to cave. In which case you guys will be scoring a follower.
@dailydotblog
13 November 2010 at 4:40 pm #
It’s boring and awkward until you get involved. This pretty much catches my opinion.
I just got a week or two before an fast and precise answer from Adobes After Effects for my problem, instead of *surprise* stumbling upon it after searching endless forum posts for it.
Not bad at all.
Vasburg’s last blog ..Do You Think- What Im Thinking
@PinkRaidFrames
13 November 2010 at 8:26 pm #
This blog was the main reason I got a Twitter account (@PinkRaidFrames). I realized I was missing half the content you two produce because I wasn’t following you on Twitter. Problem solved.
Doxa
You should probably update that link of Antigen’s to point to just http://www.hazmacewillraid.com as its no longer a blogspot URL.
Or he might get mad.
@Rhidach
15 November 2010 at 2:41 pm #
Oo, bad Ana. I took care of it.
Do you know any holy pvp paladins… its come to my attention that not a single guide exists for 4.01 holy paladin pvp. i.e. enchants, gems, glyphs, spec. I’ve maxed my prot pally for what can be done prior to cat, so i wanted to try holy pvp, but there is so little help out there.
Hate to be a noob, but is there a quick way to pick up on the twitter shorthand and ideas on how to use twitter? I keep seeing links with #this or that or @something (I think that means a reply to that person), but I’m curious to learn more. Any suggestions?
@Rhidach
15 November 2010 at 2:41 pm #
There’s really not much to it. @Rhidach, for example, just is a “mention” of my twitter name, which means that I’ll see it on my feed (even if I don’t follow you). The pound signs make hashtags which can be used to organize tweets and make them easy to find via searching.
@Dielman
20 November 2010 at 7:55 am #
Hey guys, long time reader, looong time, but first post. Are you guys using an in-game app? I tried tweetcraft post 4.0.3 and it is slightly broken. As always, great blog, love the work.
Dielman’s last blog ..Cows