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 Enlarge | By Musadeq Sadeq, AP |
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| Facebook and other social-networking sites such as Twitter are becoming a bigger part of our lives. |
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| | YOU, TOO CAN BE THE TYPE OTHERS WANT TO FOLLOW | | How do you make your status updates or tweets more readable? Some updaters and Twitterers suggest some dos and don'ts.
Alison Bailin Batz, Phoenix DO:  Say what you mean: "Often Twitterers tend to think other people can read minds. I'm all for being funny, cute, perky and zany, but you gotta get your point across."
Give them a hook -- a tip, a laugh, a link: "On Cinco de Mayo, Sprinkles Cupcakes put out a tweet that said the first person (in the stores) to say hola! instead of hi would get a free chocolate cupcake. Brilliant."
DON'T: Tweet like some celebs: Reality star "Khloe Kardashian just tweeted that she threw out a pitch at a baseball game; didn't say what game, what team she cheered for, no tweetpic. Yet she has nearly 130,000 followers."
Post "anything you don't want Grandma to see."
Sheri Peterson, Santa Rosa, Calif. DO: Make unusual confessions: "I harbor secret fears that the Ghost Whisperer has some basis in fact."
Be thought-provoking: "If Jesus friended you, would you friend him?" DON'T: Just give the Bible verse of the day: "Those who have nothing else to say in their updates are guaranteed a low response rate from anyone other than other Bible-verse updaters."
Tom Cipullo, West Palm Beach, Fla. DO: Include interesting detail: "Post watching White House, which might be interesting, or watching Obama in White House from crawlspace in ceiling, which would be REALLY interesting." DON'T: Speak in code: "Don't leave people out of the loop by posting, now that's what I'm talking about without letting us know what the hell you're talking about."
Use micro blog slang: "Most people don't understand."
Stephen Stewart, Sugar Land, Texas DO: Use complete sentences with the best possible grammar: "If you constantly confuse 'your' for 'you are,' then invest in an eighth-grade English textbook before posting updates."
Post optimistic messages: "... and good tips on food, sales, books, movies." DON'T: Share too many details: "Such as you are tired or constipated or angry at someone you can't even name."
Rant: Skip the "profanity that would make Christian Bale blush." |
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Not so long ago, people used to keep diaries to record their quotidian doings — privately, of course. Now people keep Facebook and Twitter accounts, updating their status daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute, and almost nothing is private.
Worse, the modern status update is not always compelling reading.
Feeding the cat
Watching TV
Eating a tuna sandwich
To be fair, even great diarists of the past had bad days: Samuel Pepys, the Englishman whose journals clarified a big chunk of the 17th century for historians, sometimes had nothing more imaginative to say than: And so to bed.
Surely we could do better 350 years later?
"We all have to go to status-update charm school," jokes Hal Niedzviecki, author of The Peep Diaries: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors, who joined a slew of online social networks to investigate how they are changing the definition of privacy. "Just one in every million status updates is worth reading, maybe one in every 5 million if you're looking for poetics."
Never mind poetics. Coherence would be nice.
There's no doubt that social-media networks are fantastic communication machines. They allow people to feel connected to a virtual community, make new friends and keep old ones, learn things they didn't know. They encourage people to write more (that can't be bad) and write well and concisely (which is hard, trust us). They are a new form of entertainment (and marketing) that can occupy people for hours in any given day.
"Great blogging is great writing, and it turns out great Twittering is great writing — it's the haiku form of blogging," says Debbie Weil, a consultant on social media and author of The Corporate Blogging Book.
But the art of the status update is not much of an art form for millions of people on Facebook, where users can post details of what they're doing for all their friends to see, or on Twitter, where people post tweets about what they're doing that potentially every user can see.
Mundane to clever
Funny, clever and sassy updates and tweets stand out because they are the exception. Boring, vapid or just TMI — too much information — updates often dominate in cyberspace.
Sheri Peterson, 47, a social worker in Santa Rosa, Calf., is new to Facebook and sometimes can't believe the humdrum nature of what she's reading.
"Some friends — college-educated adults — consistently give lousy updates, such as Got up; went to store; came home; watched TV," she says. "Nothing about what kind of store or even what they bought. Was it specialty cheese or incontinence supplies? Nothing about what show they're watching, which could create conversation: 'You like watching Galloping Gourmet reruns? So do I!' "
Although most of these social-media sites have been around now for at least a few years, it appears many users haven't quite grasped the idea. For some reason, they think their friends and family, plus total strangers, care that they're, say, Thinking big thoughts. Yet they don't actually explain those big thoughts and, in the case of Twitter, do it effectively in just 140 characters or less.
"No one cares if you're On the way to the airport, Checking bags or Arrived in Kansas," says Avery Roth, 23, a public relations coordinator in Dallas. "People who update their status hourly need to cool it. It's also a little vain."
The most inane updates, says Karyn Cronin, 32, an administrative assistant in St. Paul, say things like Just got back from the grocery store with all the kids, and boy are we exhausted. "That's just lame," says Cronin, who tries to make her friends laugh by using famous movie lines for her status updates: Karyn can't handle the truth, or Karyn feels a disturbance in the Force.
Slowly, style and etiquette rules for status updates are evolving, as people get more practice and as skillful updaters become more recognized. There's already a Facebook app called Status King, which allows users to nominate and vote on funny and clever status updates, and buy a T-shirt emblazoned with a favorite. (A recent example: Suzanne is thinking: Change is inevitable ... except from a vending machine.)
Jeffrey Harmon, 26, of Provo, Utah, and his siblings launched Status King in January and already thousands of updates are posted. (Sample favorite: Jared is wondering where he's going and why he's in a hand basket.)
"People spend hours and hours thinking up status updates to win a free T-shirt," Harmon says. He says status updates can be useful for telling friends and family where you are —Jeff is at Disneyland — without having to make dozens of phone calls. But because so many people have Twitter and Facebook accounts, information overload can build up and spill over to recipients who don't know Jeff or care that he is at Disneyland.
"The Internet is going through a maturing stage right now," Harmon says. "The only things you should post on Facebook are the things you'd tell your friends in real life. But a lot of people treat it as a personal journal, and they vent. They don't realize they are sharing with all my friends."
When Stephen Stewart, 48, an energy company executive in Sugar Land, Texas, joined Facebook a few months ago, he was shocked when some friends shared private matters in updates.
"One was griping about her bosses — I had to shoot her a private message: 'What are you doing? Delete that comment,' " he says.
Making a connection
So what makes a good status update? "Personality," says Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com, an online publication that covers social networking. "Personality is really what drives people to (follow) you, especially on Twitter."
How to improve your updates? "Follow others who are funny, clear and concise and mimic them, or Twitter a bunch and figure out what people respond to," says Sarah Milstein, co-author of The Twitter Book.
Think before you tweet, Ostrow advises. "If this (tweet) were the last thing you ever published, would it be something to be proud of?"
Here's an example of how to improve an update, courtesy of Alison Bailin Batz, 28, a public relations executive in Phoenix and Twitter aficionado: A friend tweets that she just ate some tasty frozen yogurt — and that's it. Why such a useless post? Turns out she was excited because her local frozen yogurt shop was giving away free scoops that day.
"THAT is what (she) should have posted — information that I can use, in this case, free food," Batz says. "We're in the 'whee!' stage of social networking. The trend for 2010 is that everyone is going to cut back, filter, decide whether we really need to follow 1,000 people if they're not interesting. Next year, only the best tweeters survive."
Of course, there is disagreement about what's the best. Milstein argues that even the most banal updates serve a purpose.
"An individual post may not be interesting, but over the course of weeks you build a meaningful picture of somebody, you get a sense of the rhythms of someone's life," she says. Still, "people have to choose to read your updates (on Twitter), and if you're boring, they won't follow you. It's a medium that rewards interestingness."
Interestingness must be in short supply. Anne Trubek, a writer and associate professor of composition and rhetoric at Oberlin College who is studying status updates as a developing 21st-century literary form, sorted them into four categories for her column in the online magazine GOOD: The prosaic (Jill is baking bread); the informative (Jack loves this article from GOOD, followed by the link); the clever and funny (Johnny thinks Obama should be sworn in a few more times, just to be EXTRA safe); and the poetic or nonsensical (If Jim were a cloud, he would rain Earl Grey tea).
Trubek likes them all, especially for the brevity that forces people to think and write in new ways.
"In the past 10 years, with e-mail and now Facebook and IMing and texting and Twitter, people feel more connected to writing as a form of expression, and that is wonderful and refreshing," she says.
Indeed, Niedzviecki says, maybe it's just elitism to expect soaring poetry in a status update, when most ordinary people are just looking for a connection they can relate to.
"Most people are not going to have the time or opportunity to find clever links and have interesting things to say 24 hours a day — that's what the celebrities and gurus we follow do, it's their 24-hour job to be entertaining," he says. "For the rest of us, it's, hey, I just ordered takeout.
"And that's fine. There's a charm to that."
第一章 柴玲：民運的彗星
草根女學生变身學生領袖
歷史曝光鏡頭 領袖成為禍首
“讓別人流血，而自己求生”
夢想一夜暴富 經商一敗塗地
柴玲分不清現實和夢境
第二章 民運二王
民運二王之王丹
民運二王之王軍濤
臺灣軍情局控制主流民運組織
臺灣設立“專案”資助二王和楊建利
台美撒錢 防止民運失去控制
第三章 胡平：追求權力的民運理論家
胡平其人
內鬥專家 導致民運兩次重大分裂
心胸狹隘 容不下言論自由和正常批評
曹長青的文章爲什麽激怒了胡平？
第四章 《北京之春》雜誌與民運的腐敗
《北京之春》的由來
曹長青揭露《北京之春》黑幕
胡平回應曹長青：從紅衛兵變成政治傀儡
第五章 劉青：以人權的名義作惡多端
“中國人權”的由盛轉衰
劉青發家史：人心險惡和道德淪喪
劉青辭職，但問題並沒解決
第六章 魏京生：從“民主之父”到“民運王倫”
四面楚歌，疑神疑鬼
魏京生的罩門：無知、固執
“因出賣情報獲刑”被證實
為發財設立基金會
打压异己的“民主之父”
嫉賢妒能的“民運王倫”
第七章 吳弘達：虛構的“英雄”
吳弘達其人
忘恩負義，嫉妒成性，排斥異己
吳弘達被抓：痛哭流涕、悔罪認錯
為保權勢打压异类，沽名釣譽
吳弘達真面目：弥天大谎、自相矛盾
法輪功動了吳弘達的乳酪？
揭穿法輪功謠言 意在丟卒保帥
第八章 倪育賢：無惡不作的“勇士”
倪育賢其人其事
上海來信拆穿倪育賢的畫皮
劉賓雁：倪育賢是一個“有問題”的人
民運是賈府：只有門前的石獅是乾淨的
無惡不作的倪育賢
博士造反 海外舉義旗
假闯关 胆小鼠遭彈劾
民聯陣拒交出“中春”
二王落獄造勢代價大
唱高調找靠山自封王
鳩占雀巢搶政庇生意
清門戶猶盼分久必合
June 20th, 2009 at 12:23 am
民運人士當特工
第九章 紐約“政治庇護行業”形同“黑幫”
民主黨創始人痛批“鳩占鵲巢”
倪育賢、劉東星狼狽為奸
民主黨真假難辨 相互指責
被美國法庭當場揭穿的“双面諜”
民運又內訌 倪育賢涉窃盜罪被捕法辦
第十章 彭明與“中發聯”的悲劇
其一，政治投機，不得善終
其二，烏合之眾，敗事有餘
其三，利令智昏，窮途末路
第十一章 『獨立筆會』的黑幕
高寒案揭開『獨立筆會』的黑幕
“幫派”內訌 爭權奪利
刪名有過節 爭名沒商量
揮棒收拾你 還要你道歉
貧富不均 紛爭之源
義工圖利 坐地分贓
財務拒公開 假賬名堂多
民運有“幫規” 順服成大老
制度成擺設 權力更傲慢
高寒撤訴，轉往高等法院控告“筆會”
內訌官司逼出胡平
第十二章 齷齪小人徐水良
王希哲的一張大字報
徐水良在王若望葬禮上大打出手
徐水良一心抓“共特”抓成精神分裂
第十三章 民運人士當特工（一）
“逐案審查 臺灣情治單位為民運供血
有錢能使鬼推磨 民運成“傀儡”
敲詐勒索 不給錢就曝光“特殊合作”
民進黨執政 民運由反共變支持台獨
台獨大老：“要讓大陸忙不過來”
民運貴族從不擔心“斷奶”
《北京之春》雜誌社的內幕
第十四章 民運人士當特工（二）
秘密文件頻繁曝光
為錢而支持台獨
台獨要求民運從空談轉向實際行動
臺灣當局對民運的“用防結合”
臺灣特工操縱民運黨同伐異
民運開會拉人湊數
陳水扁當局操縱民運的經典模式
第十五章 民運人士當特工（三）
臺灣與民運合作卅年簡史
王丹承認接受臺灣經費
王炳章被臺灣出賣，遭大陸“綁架”
楊建利被林保華出賣被捕
陳水扁接見民運人士，隱密間諜浮出水面
陳水扁私吞臺灣海外民運經費
第十六章 樹倒猢猻散，猴子成大王
傅申奇：靠散兵游勇翻盤
陳破空：民運和尚嫖妓
李洪寬：曇花一現的“民運超人”
伍凡、唐柏橋：“中國過渡政府”領袖
傳倪育賢的太太是馬英九的表妹
民運應反思：為何中國進步，民運退步？