First, there were chat rooms. Then there was MySpace. Now, Twitter is the new thing on the Internet.
CNN is on top of this, and tweets now provide almost 80 percent of the station’s news coverage. As for the service itself, it can’t catch a break. Most people don’t really know proper Internet etiquette anyway, but it seems like only a select few have the mental willpower to use Twitter properly. It’s no longer about just the etiquette, but it could be a major influence on the job world.
There are several stereotypes of Twitter users. I’m going to insult all of them, so if you fear that you may fall into one of these categories and are unfortunate enough to not have the ability to laugh at yourself, you’ll probably want to skip this column.
Firstly, and perhaps most despised, are the every-seconders. They are the ones who more than likely have a fancy phone, typically with the fruit logo on the back. They have somehow surmised Twitter is the new AOL Instant Messenger. Except this time, there’s nobody answering.
If you’re unlucky enough to stumble upon their actual profile pages, you’ll probably be able to track every place they’ve been all day. Additionally, you can tell the traffic between said points, and even the quality of the hamburger they had for lunch. Unfortunately, they are the ones who give Twitter a bad name — this is the group that contains the “tweeting-en-route-to-the-restroom” crowd.
Less annoying, but perhaps contributing to an even bigger waste of space, are the linkers. These people are probably politically charged (or wanna-be politically charged people). If not, then they definitely remind you of your mother and her e-mail habits. They clog your feed with the most adorable puppy in the world twice a day. Notably, these are different puppies, so they likely have the attention span of a 4 year old.
Perhaps they think nobody else uses the Internet. Or, perhaps, they’ve never heard of Digg or Reddit. Either way, you can be assured they believe the URL shortening service bit.ly is the coolest thing ever. Now, they can annoy everyone with their opinions and links.
Very much like the linkers, the retweeters are quite proud of themselves. They may have stumbled upon the feature before it was fully rolled out by Twitter, or perhaps they really have nothing exciting to add to the conversation. Either way, they enjoy retweeting anything hilarious or important. Their tweets are likely uninteresting or already on my feed because I follow them.
For example, they tweet “cool RT @Engadget CONFIRMED: The iPad 2 will have supersonic flight capabilities.” That sentence, aside from being completely likely to happen, includes my bashing of gadget blog Engadget for the week.
The most despised, in my book, are the MySpacers and Facebook people. They started on MySpace, and then transitioned to Facebook when MySpace became not cool. Now, they’ve migrated their online time to Twitter, much to the disdain of their followers.
Luckily, they’re easy to spot — simply look for the text messaging language. Finding a complete word in their update is as difficult as spotting the gold at the end of the rainbow. You can usually find them also spouting absurd statements, like the numerous ones who ardently disapproved of the aid the US government sent to Haiti.
Most people know what they post on their blogs is likely to come up in a job search. Potential employers are running searches on personal profiles now. Facebook and MySpace already are scoured by employers. In fact, a study released by the Internet security firm Poofprint said 8 percent of companies have fired someone based on material found on Facebook or LinkedIn. Employees now realize they have to be careful what they post there.
They don’t, however, feel the same way about Twitter. Many of the stereotypes I listed earlier are fun caricatures of people. However, several of them can result in real-life consequences. The every-seconders could show employers someone who is unfocused.
The linkers and re-tweeters are likely in safe harbor, depending on the appropriateness of the source material. The Facebook/MySpace refugees have the most to be concerned about, perhaps because they are the most oblivious.
Twitter is still fairly new. Precautions taken on Facebook don’t carry over because it could be reasoned employers don’t read Twitter. Although the Oregon Business Report stated that only 7 percent of employers read candidates’ tweets as of August 2009, as the service becomes more and more popular, that number will only increase.
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