How many accounts is too many?

[Clinton]

We run a website which hosts family announcements for about 600
newspapers, and we'd like to have an automated twitter feed for each
newspaper. However, I don't want to run foul of of the Twitter terms
and conditions.

How many accounts is too many? Would this be too many, or would this
be considered reasonable?

thanks

Clint

[Doug Williams]

Clint,
The short answer is that as long as the accounts are being used for
legitimate purposes, then all of your newspapers can have their own
account. However, fewer desperate accounts are always better so we'd
appreciate any consolidation that would benefit you and us at the same
time.

Thanks,
Doug Williams
Twitter API Developer Support
http://twitter.com/dougw

[Dossy Shiobara]

On 3/9/09 4:03 PM, Doug Williams wrote:
> [...] However, fewer desperate accounts are always better [...]

Indeed. It seems like more than 60% of tweets on the public timeline
look pretty desperate.

o.O *giggle*

--
Dossy Shiobara | do...@panoptic.com | http://dossy.org/
Panoptic Computer Network | http://panoptic.com/
"He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)

[Doug Williams]

Guilty as charged.

s/desperate/disparate/

Doug Williams
Twitter API Developer Support
http://twitter.com/dougw

[Clinton Gormley]

Hi Doug

thanks for the advice.

> The short answer is that as long as the accounts are being used for
> legitimate purposes, then all of your newspapers can have their own
> account. However, fewer desperate accounts are always better so we'd
> appreciate any consolidation that would benefit you and us at the same

There are two issues to contend with:
- the rate-limiting on the number of posts that we can make per
hour/day/month
- how useful it is for the end user

Our 600 odd newspapers belong to 10 newspaper groups (each with their
own domain) of varying sizes. The biggest group has about 300 of those
newspapers, and about 10,000 new notices per week.

So if we were to consolidate the accounts and to use just one per
newspaper group, we'd be exceeding the limits and flooding users with
too much information.

I'm very new to the twitter world, but it seems that most people don't
use any form of filtering, so 1,000-3,500 notices per day in a single
twitter feed would be excessive :)

It seems like individual accounts is the way to go, unless anybody has a
better suggestion?

Also, by having an account per newspaper, the geographic location of the
notice is implied, without having to waste visible tweet space.

A typical tweet would look like this:

----------------------------
http://announce.jpress.co.uk/1854424 - #Engagement : Penfound Neville -
Congratulations Alex and Claire on your engagement. Love you both...
----------------------------

many thanks

Clint

--
Web Announcements Limited is a company registered in England and Wales,
with company number 05608868, with registered address at 10 Arvon Road,
London, N5 1PR.

[TjL]

> I'm very new to the twitter world, but it seems that most people don't
> use any form of filtering, so 1,000-3,500 notices per day in a single
> twitter feed would be excessive :)

My unsolicited opinion is this:

You're confusing Twitter with RSS.

RSS is a way to "push" this type of information out to people.

Twitter is the wrong tool.

Now if you're working for a client who insists that they've heard
about this Twitter "thing" and they want to get their stuff on
Twitter, that's fine.

But it sounds like a recipe for a whole lot of work and very few followers.

That's my opinion.

If you/they are determined to do this, then the best way to do it
("least-worst") solution is to make it so that you are sending the
fewest number of status updates as possible which are as specific as
possible.

You're welcome to try, but no one.... NO ONE is going to read 10,000
of these per week.

I'd go on, but "how to use Twitter" is really OT for the list.

TjL

[Clinton]

> You're confusing Twitter with RSS.
>
> RSS is a way to "push" this type of information out to people.
>
> Twitter is the wrong tool.

Well, is it? Yes, you're right, I AM thinking of using this like RSS,
but is that necessarily wrong?

To put it in context, there are lots of people who read the day's
obituaries (or other family announcements) in their daily newspaper. I
could imagine these people being interested in receiving a list of new
notices daily.

My previous number of 3,500 was the number of new notices across a
whole site (which consists of many newspapers), but for individual
newspapers, we're talking about anything between 0 and 100 per day-
usually more like 20-30. That is manageable.

>
> Now if you're working for a client who insists that they've heard
> about this Twitter "thing" and they want to get their stuff on
> Twitter, that's fine.

There's an element of that :)

>
> If you/they are determined to do this, then the best way to do it
> ("least-worst") solution is to make it so that you are sending the
> fewest number of status updates as possible which are as specific as
> possible.

Sure. In this context, that amounts to a tweet for each new notice
that is published - any less and we'd just be sending stats: "20 new
obituaries", which is meaningless to everybody.

> I'd go on, but "how to use Twitter" is really OT for the list.

:) .oO( it's that obvious? )

I'd welcome other ideas for how to incorporate twitter into the site,
or pointers to useful implementations by other companies.

thanks

Clint

[TjL]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Clinton <cli...@iannounce.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> You're confusing Twitter with RSS.
>>
>> RSS is a way to "push" this type of information out to people.
>>
>> Twitter is the wrong tool.
>
> Well, is it? Yes, you're right, I AM thinking of using this like RSS,
> but is that necessarily wrong?

If you ask just about anyone who uses Twitter a lot, they would tell
you yes, it is wrong.

Google "twitter is not rss" (including the quotes) and read some of the results.

RSS is RSS. People who want RSS go to RSS.

What's the advantage of Twitter? That people can get them via SMS? Not
at the rates you're talking about publishing.

With the exception of "Breaking News" I don't see any sort of purpose
to duplicate what RSS provides via Twitter.

> To put it in context, there are lots of people who read the day's
> obituaries (or other family announcements) in their daily newspaper. I
> could imagine these people being interested in receiving a list of new
> notices daily.

Sounds like a perfect job for a daily email digest. I'd sign up for
one of those if my local paper provided it.

I would not, however, sign up for their Twitter feed.

Seriously, I'm not trying to be a PITA or smart-aleck.

There's not enough info in 140 characters to tell me what I need to
know, so all you can do is post a name, age, and a link to your
website.

You are probably not going to send any "Breaking News! Maybelle Lewis,
90, died" updates. Once a day is plenty.

I'd MUCH rather give you my email address and get the daily digest
where I can get the full obit (and you can stick some other marketing
information in the email if you'd like :-)

> My previous number of 3,500 was the number of new notices across a
> whole site (which consists of many newspapers), but for individual
> newspapers, we're talking about anything between 0 and 100 per day-
> usually more like 20-30. That is manageable.

FWIW I believe that 20-30 a day is going to rate you as a "nuclear follow cost"

http://www.followcost.com

which I point to as further evidence that this is not how Twitter
users intend to use Twitter.

>> If you/they are determined to do this, then the best way to do it
>> ("least-worst") solution is to make it so that you are sending the
>> fewest number of status updates as possible which are as specific as
>> possible.
>
> Sure. In this context, that amounts to a tweet for each new notice
> that is published - any less and we'd just be sending stats: "20 new
> obituaries", which is meaningless to everybody.

Yes, but

"Obituaries for John Smith, Kelly Green, Joseph Smith, Al Jones, [and
so on] http://tr.im/0000"

would be better than 10 separate posts

> I'd welcome other ideas for how to incorporate twitter into the site,
> or pointers to useful implementations by other companies.

How other companies are using Twitter might be a good thing to checkout.

Look at http://twitter.com/zappos for example.

They aren't link-blasting you with sale information or special promo
codes. It's an actual person typing in actual messages, making
connections with actual people.

On the other side, there is http://twitter.com/cnn who has 34,561
followers, but even they posting less than 20 times a day. And they're
CNN.

Look at how Rachel Maddow is using it http://twitter.com/maddow
Pointers to her show but not JUST that.

If there is an on-scene reporter who wants to take on an official
Twitter account, that'd be one thing, but if it's going to be
automated, I think it's missing the point.

TjL

[Chad Etzel]

Counter-example:

http://twitter.com/breakingnewson

posts way more than 20 times a day, posts no (or very few) links, and
has 31k+ followers.

I actually don't see this use-case (for the newspaper obits, etc) as
being contrary to the purpose of twitter. Local news is turning into a
big deal, and I think non-technical people are more apt to use and
learn twitter for its simplicity than to learn how to use an RSS
reader (my experience, anyway).

Everybody uses (read: interacts with) twitter differently, and for
different reasons. I have no idea what this "follow cost" is... who
decides how many tweets per day is too many, anyway? 20 seems pretty
low to me, actually.

I say go for it, if you have the time/resources/desire... even if you
don't get a ton of followers (which isn't the point either, and the
topic for another time/thread), it will be a good exercise in learning
how to interact with multiple technologies.

-Chad

[Cameron Kaiser]

> FWIW I believe that 20-30 a day is going to rate you as a "nuclear follow
> cost"
>
> http://www.followcost.com
>
> which I point to as further evidence that this is not how Twitter
> users intend to use Twitter.

FWIW, I'm one of those so-called nuclear follow cost Twitterers, so be
careful about what you consider excessive.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- Bowl angry. ----------------------------------------------------------------

[TjL]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Cameron Kaiser <spe...@floodgap.com> wrote:
>
>> FWIW I believe that 20-30 a day is going to rate you as a "nuclear follow
>> cost"
>>
>> http://www.followcost.com
>>
>> which I point to as further evidence that this is not how Twitter
>> users intend to use Twitter.
>
> FWIW, I'm one of those so-called nuclear follow cost Twitterers, so be
> careful about what you consider excessive.

As am I, but I'd never follow a news service that was nuclear,

Also, re:

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Chad Etzel <jazz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Counter-example:
>
> http://twitter.com/breakingnewson
>
> posts way more than 20 times a day, posts no (or very few) links, and
> has 31k+ followers.

Yes, similar to CNN, which is why I included their data.

I'm not claiming to be normative, I just don't see what Twitter brings
that would be better than an email list for this purpose when the
information clearly won't fit in 140 characters.

RSS would be a better technology, email would have a lower barrier to entry.

Using Twitter because Twitter is popular is the wrong reason to use
Twitter, and I think it misses what Twitter has to offer that makes it
different than RSS/Email.

Just throwing your stuff on Twitter because you've got the technical
know-how misses the point.

And with that, I will officially shut up.

About this.

TjL

[Ed Finkler]

Twitter is opt-in. If you don't want certain kinds of content in your
friends timeline, you just don't follow a particular account. I don't
think we should get terribly dogmatic about how an account is used
(beyond things that violate TOS). In fact, the flexibility of Twitter
and its API is a big reason why it has such a large dev community, I'd
say.

I subscribe to a couple broadcast-only "news ticker" accounts, because
I like the content and prefer to have it in my friends timeline over
other delivery systems.

--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
Twitter:@funkatron
AIM: funka7ron
ICQ: 3922133
XMPP:funk...@gmail.com


On Mar 10, 1:15 pm, TjL <luo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Look athttp://twitter.com/zapposfor example.

>
> They aren't link-blasting you with sale information or special promo
> codes. It's an actual person typing in actual messages, making
> connections with actual people.
>

> On the other side, there ishttp://twitter.com/cnnwho has 34,561

> followers, but even they posting less than 20 times a day. And they're
> CNN.
>

> Look at how Rachel Maddow is using ithttp://twitter.com/maddow