Changes with Twitter Sent Me to Reddit for Discussing Shows, Sports, and Most Social Media Interactions

January Post Regarding Twitter Changes

Back in January Twitter changed how third party applications can interact with Twitter (see post) which ultimately made various applications to stop working. The decisions by Elon Musk continue to cause issues for Twitter. Yes, I still have my account, but I rarely use, or interact, with Twitter. It is not where I go for news, discussing sports, shows, etc., but more of an afterthought after I have been interacting on other social media sites such as Reddit. 

For years I have used connectors to auto post to FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn when I post to my site. In March auto posting from IFTTT, which is a site used to publish to many other social media sites, will stop working for Twitter. This is a huge impact on sharing tweets for many companies and bloggers. It is an easy way to share information from web sites to Twitter which will suddenly stop working for many. It is not clear how this can help Twitter as it seems to be causing people to leave the social media service in mass. However, it is also causing traffic to not go to Twitter with these changes. No longer are tweets being generated from millions of sites to publicize on Twitter, so instead, there will be nothing at all. No connections and possibly more people leaving the Twitter service.

While I still have my Twitter account, I use Reddit to interact with others on shows, movies, and especially sports. My frequent sites for sports include  /r/CollegeBasketball, /r/CFB, /r/KansasCityChiefs, /r/KCRoyals, and /r/jayhawks. I like Reddit to interact with others as there are game threads for each and every game where then I can comment, respond, etc. to posts from others on that sport. I will say it took me a while to figure out the best approach for interacting with others on Reddit for a sporting event as there can be 1,000’s of replies to a game thread which makes it fast paced and a lot of information, so I looked for other options interacting with others via Reddit on a specific post.

• Reddit-Stream.com is a great site that works in a web browser. It is cheap as I paid for a lifetime account, but you can do a 30 day trial to test it out. Basically, it takes a thread and makes it easy to follow, comment, and follow up to comments from others. The web site lists some interesting posts, but you can use this site for anything simply by replacing the URL of a Reddit discussion with “-stream” following the reddit.com link (i.e. reddit-stream). I use Reddit-Stream.com frequently for discussions and with most game threads also including score, recent plays, etc., it is also a good way to keep up with a game. I have also used Reddit-Stream.com for discussing shows, award shows, etc. I highly recommend if you are looking to try out Reddit for discussions.

• Sideline is an app for iOS and Android that allows for easy discussion of game threads. It is only for games and specially Sideline application supports NCAA MBB, NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL, and NCAA CFB. This is a fairly new application as I just started using Sideline about a year ago. I can set favorites which will display at the top of the app and makes it easy to get to my sports topics or to switch back and forth between two events happening at the same time. I highly recommend Sideline for interacting via Reddit on sporting events. There is not an iPad option, but I am told that this is being worked on.

Granted, you can access Reddit directly to interact on a thread, but I found the above items to help with presentation of the comments and tracking what is said or my responding to others. If you have not used Reddit, the site has a wealth of information with topics for just about anything you can imagine. When I am researching a technical question, I often find that Google searches will link to a Reddit post about the same thing where I can then jump into the discussion and post follow ups or read what others wrote and solutions were provided in the thread. Very handy!

To connect with me on Reddit, or see what I have been posting, please visit my Reddit Profile.

Until next time, have a great week and I look forward to connecting with you on Reddit.

Twitter Turns Off Access for Third Party Applications to Twitter Since January 12, 2023 — Musk Take Over Causing Problems

Tweetbot Service Disruption

Since Elon Musk took over Twitter on October 27, 2022, it is really a struggle to remain a customer of Twitter. From allowing blocked accounts back on the service to the most recent issue of blocking third party apps from accessing the service. The whole take over by Musk has been a joke from the beginning with the tweet “Entering Twitter HQ - let that sink in!” At some point, it is hard not to think that he is trying to get rid of loyal Twitter customers. I have a few friends that once Musk took over Twitter, they left the service deleting their account completely. 

The most recent change on January 12, 2023 at 7:30 pm blocking third party applications might be the last straw for me. As of this update, it has been three days since third party Twitter applications stopped working with no information from Twitter on the matter. I have been a Twitter member since April 2009 with 656 people I am following and 661 followers. Not great numbers, but I have been very active at certain times of the year and I especially found it useful for sporting events.

I have used Tweetbot for a number of years and I like the app more than the Twitter app. The main point I like is that I can set my own feed and not have to do what Twitter wants with popular tweets at the top of my timeline. With Tweetbot, I see the actual flow of tweets from those that I follow. The past few years, Tweetbot had a subscription model for a small fee to receive updates which I had been doing. 

What a surprise on January 13 when I started up Tweetbot to find that it was not working. Then searching Twitter to find that it was a change Twitter had made affecting all third party applications using application programming interface (API) where all apps broke. With no news from Twitter, it has people wondering if this is another change by Elon Musk to force everyone to the Twitter application or site. Basically, the change being to not allow any third party applications to access Twitter. Bad idea! If there is not correction to this issue, I will leave and I think more people will leave Twitter Than we have already seen since the take over in October 2022.

Sad day to break such a wonderful social media application. Easy to share information, easy to follow, and fun to interact with others. No wonder people are leaving. I am interested what Elon Musk will do next to break the service or force people from the social media platform.

For me, I have started to use Reddit a lot more. I still enjoy the ease to post and interact with Twitter, but Reddit has a sub for almost everything and finding that it is fun to interact there with others on sporting events. So, I have not decided yet to delete my account, but I am certainly approaching this as my next action on the Twitter site going down the tubes.

What are you using for your social media platform? Do you still use Twitter? If not, why did you decide to move away from Twitter?

Chats via Twitter and My Experience

I have been using Twitter since April 2009 when I first created my account. In the early years, I did not use it too much.  I created the account simply to see what all the cool kids were using.  In the past few years, I have been using Twitter on a regular basis.  I enjoy Twitter much more than FaceBook and typically use Twitter to interact with others about an event whether that is a sporting, television, or other major event being discussed.  Mostly I have used Twitter to discuss Royals, Chiefs, Washburn, or KU.

Recently I had heard about #TwitterChat. This was new to me, so I wanted to find a #TwitterChat I could participate.  The first few I found were not so much "chats", but rather random people posting web sites to check on the topic.  I checked a few others finding the same thing of not a lot of discussion back-and-forth with the Twitter accounts, but simply people posting web sites to check on the topic.

I found a couple of web sites that listed Twitter Chats that had been compiled by various people.  Again, a few of these were helpful and a few were not.  I would find a topic I wanted to discuss and search for that hashtag finding no discussion at all was taking place on the particular topic.

I did find a Twitter Chat schedule that seems good and each of the times I have checked the schedule, there are actually chats occurring at the scheduled times.  The one I found is hosted on Google as a document.  It is simply called Twitter Chats 2.  By way of this chat schedule, I participated in my first #TwitterChat last Sunday.  It was a great time and I connected with others on the topic.

The chat I participated in was simply about blogging with a hashtag search of #blogchat.  It was exactly what I expected from a chat where a topic was posted by the moderator and people began responding, connecting, and interacting on the topic.  The topic of #blogchat meets every Sunday at 8 pm CST and I plan to take part in it again tonight.

My goal is to post on a regular basis here on my blog.  It was a inspiration to take part in the #blogchat and get ideas, motivation, and see what others were doing with their blogs.  Obviously having a blog, I want people to read and participate in said blog.

One interaction I had during the #blogchat last week was that I do not get a lot of comments, but I can see that people are accessing and reading the posts.  My thought on why I do not get a lot of comments was primarily because I post so inconsistently.  I believe if I start posting on a regular basis that will result in regular followers that will begin to post comments.

The #blogchat is very fast paced.  A lot of posts and it is recommended that you use a client that can separate those discussions in a easy manner.  I use Tweetbot for Mac and iOS that does this for me.  Many people use TweetDeck or HootSuite for this purpose.  I see fast paced discussions when following sporting events, but unlike those, I do not try to read or respond to every post like I did with the #blogchat discussion.

Until next time, have a great week!