Twitter is broken.  It always has been – from Fail Whale to Spammers – there is always a problem.  Still, it’s one of my favorite places to interact with the web – from finding breaking news or interacting in small exchanges (FriendFeed for longer ones)- there are few technologies I’ve incorporated into my daily life like Twitter.

I’m a bit selfish – while people like Andrew Hyde are coming up with simple UI tweaks that would help change Twitter on a whole – all I am coming up with a little lifehack that works for me.  I simply tried to understand my Twitter behavior and adapted it from there.

I decided to focus on the notifications.  I am getting 15-70 a day – often from spammers that get deleted quickly.  That was too much to handle – so I decided I needed to do something with them.  I would simply turn them off but the nature of my job means I will want to see who has followed me from time to time.  Instead, I simply set up a filter on GMail that sends all followed notifications into a filter labeled Twitter.  This is simple to do – simply filter all conversations from “@postmaster.twitter.com,” apply a label (‘twitter’ in my case) and have them skip the inbox.  Now – I’m not noticing the notifications I get daily.  I can just avoid them completely.  Twitter problem solved.

I know what some people are thinking.  “What if I miss the cool people that follow me?”  My thoughts – if they don’t capture your attention with an @ reply, your search terms, or in one of your current followers RT’s – are you REALLY missing them?  Twitter is about getting the content you desire and, in cases like mine, being able to be a resource to people.  With third party applications like Tweetdeck – I do not need to follow everyone in order for them to interact with me.  The content I want is based on who I follow.  I never really need to know who follows me.  If someone needs to DM me, a quick @ reply would earn a follow for that.  If I need to DM someone, I’d do the same.  If they won’t respond – well, then I probably shouldn’t DM them in the first place….

In fact, the simple removal of notifications allowed me to focus on what is important in Twitter – Content.  Never one to look at my Twitter follower count, all I want to know is if I’m getting the best information I can.  Sometimes that comes from a Mommyblogger with 40 followers or a Internet Celeb with 40,000 – both are worth the same to me.  My personal policy is that I’ll follow anyone that takes the time to really interact with me once.  Whether that’s a question about my work or a commentary on my musical tastes – if they take the time to write a relevant @ reply – they are probably worth a follow. Sometimes, for established Twitter people – a simply hello @ reply would work.  People are different though.  Some people, like Jeremy Tanner – have other filters.  The beauty of Twitter is that we can each use the tool as our own.  

Which brings me to my next point: this method isn’t something that works for everyone.   The key is developing what works for you and placing a value on what you find important.  For me, knowing who was following me isn’t what drives me on Twitter.  So I filtered that away.  It will be there should I want to peak on the slower days in my life, but it’s not what drives me.  What drives is the conversation.  The more I focus on that – the more Twitter will work for me….