Chris Leckness » Twitter

My Twitter hiatus and why I shut down this blog

Chris — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:31:52 +0000

Last night, I posted a test post to ensure everything still worked after I brought the site back online after having it forwarded to a landing page. Well, Twitter worked but Facebook didn’t. Everything else went well. When I made that post, I promised a follow post on why I took it offline after 5 years. Well, here it is…

1st off, why did I quit Twitter?
I haven’t really decided if I will quit for good, but some things have transpired over the last few months that make it where I feel I can’t be myself on Twitter any longer. I don’t really want to put it out here where everyone can see, but I feel that I can’t really use Twitter how I’d like to anymore. I can’t put out the good without throwing in the bad comments about certain products and services. If I can’t have it both ways, I should just shut up. I might pop back on after my 1 month, self imposed ban and read here and there, but for now, I am calling it quits. Posts I make from this blog will still be piped into my Twitter channel, but I won’t be commenting on replies on Twitter. It’s not as simple and saying “Screw it, I’m going to say whatever I want” either. It’s kinda complicated.

It’s not just Twitter.
I have also decided to discontinue use of some other social media sites as well. Foursquare is the main one. Foursquare has no real use in my life. Do any of you really care where me and my family are eating? I didn’t think so.

Why did I shut this blog down?
Truth be told, it was an impulsive act that coincided with my decision to quit on Twitter. I decided since I can’t blog about mobile tech anymore, I need to distance myself from the past. The Aximsite years were awesome, but I am not a journalist, I am not a current site owner/admin, I left the Microsoft MVP program, I can’t blog about mobile any more, and I am no longer a part of the mobile community, so there is no real reason to hang out on twitter anymore. There also is no reason to operate a personal blog anymore since I can share on Facebook. I am also trying to privatize my life a little since I am no longer any of those things. Short and simple version is that I am not important enough to really have more than Facebook to share on.

It’s back online now, why?
Simple. I missed having a place to bitch and complain that I control. My own piece of the internet. Facebook is cool and all, but I don’t own my own content there. Here I do. Not to mention, making $2-3/day with 1 single ad doesn’t hurt. It’s not gonna pay for devices, but it almost covers the server (although another site here I host for a friend covers that already). I have so many gripes and complaints I want to share that I needed to have this back online. I might not have much to say about mobile here anymore, but I will have some things to say.

Should I change the site’s domain again? Maybe www.talesfromawashedupcommunityleaderthatnolongerhasavoice.com?

Google Nexus S and the State of Mobile Operating Systems

Chris — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 03:57:45 +0000

Today, Google announced the Nexus S and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. There were lots of cheers and jeers all over Twitter today. None any better or more entertaining that Noah Kravitz out look on the mobile OS world. Noah single handedly brought PhoneDog.com to fame with his entertaining video reviews. I really loved the work he did over there before walking away to pursue other opportunities a couple months ago. To get more of what you are about to read, just subscribe to him on Twitter, in fact that is exactly what Sydney Arnold suggested after Noah’s barrage of tweets…

Shall we begin? Remember, this string of tweets came shortly after Google announced the Nexus S, which is basically the Galaxy S with Android 2.3.

New cell phone came out today. It’s exactly the same as every other cell phone. Really, think about it. Just kidding. No I’m not.

Dogging Android:

what if android and symbian had one tenth the visual appeal of iOS, windows phone 7 or webOS?

On iOS:

iOS is the most insanely stupid operating system. I can’t customize the home page. I can’t upload photos in the background. No SD slot.

Apple won’t let me get an iPhone on my choice of carriers in the US. WTF is that? What a backwards, reductionist approach to the future.

There’s only one iOS form factor available? What is that? What am I, a sheep? And no widgets? And notifications grind everything to a halt?

Now, it’s Palm’s Turn:

Palm would have the best mobile phones in the world. If only they had any clue about build quality, business deals, or marketing.

I mean seriously, Palm, you staked your comeback on a portrait slider made from 2nd rate plastic that’s a Sprint exclusive? GENIUS. Really.

I know. Let’s build the best mobile OS in the word. And then let’s launch it on the freakin’ Pre. What’s not right there? Jeez.

Next up, Nokia:

Nokia is the most clueless, dinosaur-like company in the tech world. It’s like they actively chose not ban the word “future” at HQ.

Q: What do you call a company who rules a marketplace and then takes four years off to see if they can self-destruct? A: Nokia, duh.

and finally, some WP7 Bashing:

Hey, I know! Let’s launch a brand-new mobile platform. In 2010. And NOT give it copy and paste! That’ll sell billions! Nice work, MSFT.

And his commentary has concluded:

Okay, that’s all folks. Thanks for coming, try the Chicken Kiev, and be sure to tip your servers! See ya next time …

or has it?

Dear Apple, We TOTALLY ripped you guys off in every way possible with our Nexus S page. Eat it, Google. http://bit.ly/eX4eqn <– referring to the Apple-like page Google put up to show off this Nexus S.

What do you think? He’s got plenty right there, I don’t think I would argue with a single point. He’s put out there what most are thinking but don’t have the balls to say.

Here is a look at the webpage that Google apparently got inspiration from Apple on:

About that Nexus S, I have to agree, it’s really nothing special aside from a new version of an OS I am not too fond of personally. If you check out Kent German’s comparison chart, you will see that there isn’t much difference in the hardware between the Nexus One and the Nexus S. To top this off, the phone is not capable of HSPA+ and doesn’t have a MicroSD slot. Wow!

Big Week for iPhone Apps!

Chris — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 03:19:58 +0000

This past week has been huge for iPhone users.

Google Voice App hit the market place for the iPhone only. (iTunes)

Access your Google Voice account right from your iPhone.
Receive push notifications for new text or voicemail messages.
Send free text messages to U.S. numbers and make international calls at cheap rates.
Listen to your voicemail, read transcripts and manage your Google Voice inbox.
Display your Google Voice number as caller ID when making calls.
Call contacts from your iPhone Address Book or enter new numbers on the dialpad

Official Twitter App adds push notifications. (link)

All these changes are making me want to use my iPhone 4 more and more. Google Voice is a great service and the official Twitter app is also great, but after coming from Android for the last month, not getting @reply notifications was getting on my nerves.

Who are my Twitter followers and why do they follow me?

Chris — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:01:14 +0000

Hey folks. I just thought this would be an interesting post to get to know who follows me on Twitter and why. Just a quick warning, I plan to retweet this a few times to try to get as many followers as I can to participate.

So, this poll has been created for my curiosity. I want to know who follows me and why. I know who about 1/4 of my followers are, but I still don’t know why.

I totally expect 1/2 of them to be inactive or bots. I expect a large number to be online friends and coworkers. I also expect a large portion of the followers to not even bother clicking through to this link.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and vote. Maybe I can get a good response on this one. You can choose more than one option if you fall into a couple categories here.

View This Poll

Another Twitter Post: Who I follow on Twitter.

Chris — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:20:22 +0000

To cut down on noise, I have limited my list of people I physically follow to under 50 (down from 350+). Instead, I moved most of the 350 to my list. That way I can follow them (friends, colleagues, and mobile/zune related stuff) when I am in the mood for more noise and turn that column off in Tweetdeck when I don’t want to. Just because I don’t “physically follow” you does not mean I don’t read your tweets or care. I do, really.

I just wanted to post this so people that I don’t follow understand how I am rolling now. If you aren’t on either list, let me know, I might have missed you. I have noticed several I have missed lately.

You can also read my “Twitter Policy” for more about me and Twitter. I have had such a love/hate relationship with Twitter. Anyhow. See ya on Twitter!

What’s up with Chris on Twitter?

Chris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:54:56 +0000

A couple of days ago I decided to abandon @ChrisLeckness and start over with “protected tweets”. I was going to seperate friends, followers, and asshats this way. It went well but there are a couple problems…

By protecting your tweets, others can’t see what you tweet. That is the point right? Right. BUT, what about when you want to say something to someone that isn’t following you. You can @theirname all you want, but they aren’t going to see it. I had thought that they would as long as they were @’ed, but I was wrong. I did a test with a couple people on my new account yesterday and no luck. I am not going to be able to protect my tweets. Being able to have conversation with others that do not follow me is important.
I also realized yesterday how many accounts and how many services I will have to log in and chance stuff on to reflect the new account. I had not thought about that.

That said, I have to go unprotected and I am going to return to my original account. No, I don’t mind losing 3500 tweets and almost 800 followers. In fact, I removed 250-300 followers one by one before I said screw it, this is taking too long. I wasted almost 2 hours removing about 200 of the followers. It’s ridiculous… I have decided to just leave those that are left in place. I unfollowed everyone I followed on that account when I moved to the new account too. I will refollow the same folks I followed on my new account. My new outlook on Twitter will remain the same too.

My NEW Twitter Policy

Chris — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:11:51 +0000

Taking a page from Ike, I decided to make myself a Twitter Policy. I just abandoned my 3500 tweets and 700 followers on my old account and started a brand new Twitter account to move forward with my new plan on how I am going to use Twitter.

I plan to continue to use the @Mobilitysite Account to share our stories and contests on a non-personal level.

With my new account, I am only following a select few people. These people are local friends and family, personal online friends, the celebs that are real that I care to hear, and colleagues that I have become friends with. Don’t be offended if I don’t follow you back. It’s not personal. I am just separating things to make my life easier online. Many of the people I used to follow are now part of my private list (~200), but I have no need to follow many of them on a personal level.

2 new innovations with Twitter have made it where I can pull off this plan without affecting others.

With the lists, I can follow these people selectively without having to actually follow them. This allows me to separate personal and business (or in my case, hobby). I can choose to not read the list on a particular day.
With the part where followers won’t see tweets that start with @_____ unless they also follow that account, the static for my followers will be reduced since they won’t see many of my tweets.

As for my followers, if you send me an @reply, I will probably answer no problem. I just might not follow back. It’s not that I don’t care about the individual, it’s just that I need to tone down the noise.

If want to follow me, my username is now @Leckness. My tweets are private. Don’t be afraid to request to follow me. I will most likely approve the request.

I won’t approve you if you have a 1/2 naked avatar.
I probably won’t approve you if you have about the same amount of followers and you are following and those numbers are 1K+
I probably won’t approve you if you have 5K+ Followers.

Twitter can be fun. I enjoy it now too. I used to hate Twitter.

Am I doing it right? (Twitter)

Chris — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:51:29 +0000

I have had a couple friends stop following me on Twitter in the last month or so. These aren’t just “Twitter” friends, these are actual friends in the industry. The 1st one said I tweeted too much and another said I was too self promotional. I wasn’t going to argue with the ones I asked, but these two left me wondering…

Do I Tweet too much? Am I too self promotional on Twitter?

I say no, but maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am too blind to see the problem. You know, the way some parents tell their daugthers how good they sing when their family dog keeps a better tune.

According to Tweetstats.com, I post about 11.6 tweets a day. Is that bad? According to the same source, 12% of my tweets are retweets. I RT my own sites often, but I also retweet friends just about as much.

So, am I doing it right.

Twitter Pages Have Varied Google Page Ranks.

Chris — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:33:44 +0000

I noticed something interesting today while checking out a couple Twitter profiles. The page ranks are different depending on the user. That’s quite interesting. I realize that Google is now indexing Twitter, but I figured the site would have a unified PR across the site. How important is your “Twitter Page Rank” going to be, or is that going to be useless?

Oprah and Scoble are PR 7…

I am a PR5, Mobilitysite is PR4, and iPhoneMVP is PR0…

I use Google’s bar in FF to watch page ranks for my sites and just happened to notice this. New, I don’t know. Interesting, yes.

Twitter Smitter – Piss on it, i’m done

Chris — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:57:52 +0000

Back in March 2007, I resisted the urge to go with the flow and try out Twitter. About 6-7 months ago, I decided to finally give it a try. It was kind of neat. Time went on and I rarely used it. Not too long ago, I got a kick to really try it out and actually did real good keeping up with folks, communicating, and enjoying random crap that people had to say. Last month, I realized I was spending a lot of wasted time refreshing twitterific, etc… I slowed down my reading and posting. Now, a couple weeks later, I feel that my productivity has improved.

I don’t miss anything about Twitter really. One cool thing about Twitter is the chance to follow your favorite sites via Twitter. (Mobilitysite has a Twitter Account too) The thing is, I read RSS Feeds on/off all day. I don’t need Twitter to tell me someone posted a story.

As for following friends and family. They know my phone number, email address, etc… They can call, text, email, pm, or whatever me whenever they want.

Thanks for following me if you did. Peace. Posts to this blog WILL REMAIN as sporatic as they have been this last year. I might throw a new look at it this week though.

Facebook? I’ll get on there every once in a while.