My colleague Drew tagged me in a post on his blog, asking what's best - to be public or private on Twitter?
Drew choose public because he feels that it's better at connecting you with other people. And that's the main reason he uses Twitter. Good things tend to happen when you connect.
As for me, my Twitter feed is set to public. I agree with Drew that when it comes to connecting with people (which is arguably what Twitter is best used for) public is the way to go. I am now in contact with a lot more people due to being on Twitter, and the service has improved both my business and social lives.
I have tried my account on private, but got tired of filtering through the requests to follow me. I find it much better to let whoever wants to follow me and let Twitter send me an email to let me know when someone does. I can then check their profile at my convenience and if I feel like following them back I will. And that's an important point - even if people follow me I don't have to follow them back, which is especially useful given the rise of spam bots on Twitter recently.
It is important to remember though that whatever I put out on my Twitter stream of consciousness are things that I'm happy for all of my followers to see. If I did have highly personal or sensitive conversations, then I would set my account to private. But then again, people can direct message each other if things are more appropriate that way, then there's even the options (as crazy as they may seem) of email and phone conversations.
It will be interesting to hear what the others tagged on Drew's post think. But what about you? Is your Twitter acoount set to public or private? Why did you choose one or the other?
Update:
I put the question out on Twitter and received the following replies:
 | bigtimbond @benrmatthews Public, baby, it's the only way to be! | |
 | Ronna @benrmatthews My Twitter account is public. If its online its public anyway, so I never say anything online that would embarass me in public |
Tapio also asked me to tag a few blogger friends to get canvas their opinion, so I'd like to see what Dominic, Patrick, Andy and Stacy-Marie think.
13 comments:
Cheers Ben for chiming in this meme. It actually started here: http://www.opensourcepr.de/2008/07/04/why-do-you-protect-your-tweets-or-not-meme/
Do you feel like tagging a few fellow bloggers?
I agree Ben, mine is also public...to me Twitter is about chatting, collaborating and open dialogue. I use IM, DM or email for private messages.
Public, for sure. Like you, I don't automatically follow back. But pretty much anyone is welcome to read the drivel I come out with :-)
Is communication on the Internet actually ever private? Can we trust that direct messages will never be made public? I remember incidents a few months ago:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/23/privacy-disaster-at-twitter-direct-messages-exposed/
Tapio - will tag a few to keep the conversation flowing...
Becks - chatting, collaborating and open dialogue is the way forward ;)
peeebeee - if we're coming out with drivel it would no doubt be worse if someone requested to follow it!
Amanda - I remember that incident but think it was due to a third party application called GroupTweet, not Twitter itself.
Internet privacy is an improtant issue though, especially given articles like this one that have appeared recently:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/public-lives-does-the-internet-know-too-much-about-us-856823.html
Public.
I couldn't do my job if it wasn't.
Whatley - interesting, what do you do when Twitter is borked?
Feel like I could do my job, but I wouldn't be as good or have as many contacts. Twitter will probably become more invaluable as more 'normal' people (by that I mean those other than the early adopters) come on board.
Mine is public, anything private either isn't said or goes via email.
Surely the DM function is there purely for stuff that can't be said in an open forum. The private setting is redundant, or should only be used by web2.0 scaredy cats who are still staking out the playground before joining in.
Patrick - ask a simple question, you get a simple answer!
Dom - Thanks for the comment, looking forward to seeing your (longer) take on the subject
Surprised to see so much pro-public chat about this discussion. I completely agree, I'm just surprised.
Drew - I took a quick look over my followers but most people are public, and there seems to be no clear reason why those are private chose to be so.
As Jonathan Hopkins commented:
"Public is best but then that does mean you need to think before you Tweet and accept as with many other parts of your digital self, your entire timeline can and will end op in Google AND used in mashups and all sorts of stuff. In short - anything created in pixels can be copied indefinitely and lasts forever."
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