Qwitter

Digital cleanup night. Medium Partner Program: Cancelled. Buffer: Cancelled. WP for Buffer Plug-in: Cancelled. Typefully subscription: Cancelled.

Feels much better now.

Twitter: you’re the next.

The next victim of my "digital cleanup" will be my Medium account. Even though I stopped writing original content there a while ago, I currently get a few cents a month of revenue, maybe a few dollars when I’m lucky. It’s tough to expand the readership over there. My revenue used to be enough to pay for my Partner Program annual membership, but not anymore. All in all, the time has come to move on. Continue reading →

I receive more user feedback or interactions in a day here on Micro.blog than in an entire month on Twitter. On top of that, the quality is 100x higher too. Think about that for a second. Thank you guys! Continue reading →

Starting from now: I no longer cross-post my original Micro.blog posts to Twitter. Curious to see how bad it will be for my visitors analytics.

As per my current analysis and preparation for leaving Twitter, here’s what I’m going to lose. Access to product announcements, most of which I track because they are part of my workflows (Examples: Glass, Unsplash, Substack, Opal, Readwise, and 90 more). This could be hard to replace, not all websites support RSS feeds. Access to some public services status messages like special events or some type of alerts. Two of my Brews on Mailbrew that are entirely based on Twitter content will need to be deleted. Continue reading →

The trend is clear: people are leaving Twitter. This is my follower count since June of 2022. If there was any doubt left about my decision to quit Twitter, no more.

I think it is essential to elaborate on why I will close my Twitter accounts in 2023. This is not something to do lightly. So, after much thought, here are my five main reasons. I disagree with the values and views as they are expressed by its new owner: Elon Musk. Even if he resigns, it won’t matter much. Elon Musk has broken too many things since he became the owner. Continue reading →

On Twitter, you can get notified when someone starts following you. Sounds great until it isn’t. You know, many people will start following others to get attention about their existence, hoping to get a follow back. It’s easy to know they are seeking your attention because after a few days they will unfollow you. I always despised this behaviour. For this reason, I prefer Micro.blog’s lack of notifications when someone starts to follow me. Continue reading →

I could save more than a whopping 400$ annually by shutting down my Twitter accounts. Thanks to the potential removal of a few service subscriptions from my workflow and potentially unjustified without Twitter in my digital life: Buffer, Typefully, Mailbrew. It’s incredible how thinking about my Twitter reliance makes me realize so many things on so many levels in my content creation workflow. Continue reading →

I’ve stopped clicking on Twitter links. Starve the site of attention.

Great idea. Time to give more space to non-centralizing platforms.

The longer you’ve been on Twitter (I joined in 2007), the more likely that most of your followers are inactive accounts. My guesstimate would be that less than 1% of my followers are actually active, and even fewer actually care about what I’m saying or posting. So why on earth, give a damn? Continue reading →

I’m in violation of Twitter’s guidelines because I do promote content coming from other social platforms. I do use Linktree and have my Linktr.ee URL set on @numericcitizen. This new "Promotion of alternative social platforms policy" on Twitter deserves memorializing for the pure idiocy of it. Jamie Thingelstad https://www.thingelstad.com/2022/12/18/this-new-promotion.html "Accounts that are used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform may be suspended.". Continue reading →

I would love @manton to speak out about how the current Twitter turmoils, people flocking to Mastodon, and the ability to follow people over there right from my Micro.blog feed is increasing Micro.blog engagement, subscriptions and general usage. Personally, I’m much more active than before. Continue reading →

Is this true? 12 years ago, Twitter’s office used a Mac Mini to tunnel into the servers. One day, an IT guy found it in the closet. “Anyone know who owns this?” “Unplug it. Someone will show up.” Everyone lost access to servers. Huge crisis. It became known as the “Load Bearing Mac Mini.” https://mastodon.social/@sandofsky/109434832011074072 Continue reading →

I finally found how to reconfigure my Mailbrew account to log in without using Twitter. Good thing. I don’t log in often in Mailbrew, but this morning I learned that I’d need to adjust many things when I close my Twitter account. As an example, this newsletter setup will need to be revisited to remove any references to Twitter as a data source. Mailbrew is an excellent tool for generating newsletters, but it hasn’t been updated for quite a while (October of 2021, according to the change log). Continue reading →

Found in my Micro.blog bookmarks collection:

Culture is shaped by SEO experts and algorithms. Neither of which have our best interests in mind.

Another good reason to quit Twitter and concentrate my energy here on Micro.blog.

According to media and users on Twitter: Many Twitter users added a Mastodon profile link into their bios as the Twitter alternative picked up steam. Now, any links to blocked Mastodon servers are disabled and accompanied by the text “Warning: this link may be unsafe. And Twitter on Thursday evening suddenly suspended several high-profile journalists who cover the platform and Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world, who acquired the company just a few months ago. Continue reading →

Exit plans are important. My Twitter exit planning reminds me that we all should have some sort of exit plan for anything we use and depend on online. Every building has an emergency exit plan. Businesses who subscribe to cloud-based services need to plan their exit in case they no longer like their cloud provider. The same should be planned for using services like Twitter. Having a plan is one thing but maintaining it is quite another. Continue reading →

Updated my bio today, adding a mention of being a Qwitter (someone planning to Quit Twitter). When I tell my wife that I’m going to close my Twitter accounts next year, she gives me a dubious look and says: why wait next year? 🫣😂

Whenever I want to go to Twitter, I should remember that Twitter is mostly a big dump of content originating from other places. So, why not consume content at the source instead? In my journey to a Twitter-free world, I’ll need to rebuild my habits of visiting the following places: * Techmeme: for consuming news; * RSS Reader: for consuming news and articles; * Telegram: for consuming news; * Mailbrew: for consuming content; Continue reading →