Although we know that Twitter is am amazing tool we can use to connect with others, get and share up-to-the-second information, and promote our blogs and interests, a lot of people think of self-absorbed updates on what the tweeter had for lunch, spammy sales pitches, or other useless statements, when they think of Twitter. Now researchers from Georgia Tech, the University of Southampton, and MIT want Twitter users to anonymously rate tweets of their friends and strangers, so they can give some real feedback.
The researchers have launched the website Who Gives A Tweet, and are asking Twitter users to sign up and receive tweet feedback from both followers and strangers. “The site allows us to gather a more nuanced type of feedback than is currently available, and offers users an insight into how their updates are perceived by different groups, helping them understand what their impact really is,” explains Kurt Luther, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at Georgia Tech.
“Social networking sites currently take an optimistically positive view of status updates,” says Paul André, graduate student at the University of Southampton. “Facebook enables users to ‘like’ their friends’ updates, and Twitter has ‘favourites’. But this ignores the value that could be gained from understanding which updates are disliked and why.”
Michael Bernstein, PhD student at MIT, adds, “Analysing the negatively rated tweets, and the consensus that forms around them, will help us understand the emerging approved or accepted norms in these new forms of online communication.”
If you want some honest, raw feedback on what you’ve been tweeting lately, head on over to Who Gives A Tweet and log in with your Twitter account! They will send you a DM to verify, then you can get started. Let me know how it turns out!
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Interesting, I will have to check this out. I wonder what type of tweets it asks you to rate.
Let me know what sort of results you get. I have to admit, I was too chicken to try it out.
This sounds like a cool tool. As you mentioned in your last comment, the real issue is getting the guts to hear what others have to say. I think some Twitter users should be FORCED to sign up, so they can get the idea that we don’t care what they had for lunch.
Hah – I wish they would! Maybe someday Twitter will have voting buttons by each tweet so the ones about lunch could disappear entirely.
Hi Christie.
I am still new in blogging and twitter. Will try this when my followers is over 1K? How do all of you get so many followers for your account.
Just remember one single thought……never put in writing what you wouldn’t say in person. You may regret it later and print becomes a permanent record whereas words vanish in the wind. Keep it simple. Thanks for your insight.