Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

The  thing about asking a survey is to ensure that your not asking questions just to ensure you can lead up to an answer. I mean sure you can conduct a survey in that fashion but its understanding what was understood in the questions that its the key to good stats.

So I cant do the survey because it doesnt include enough scope to handle the width of  the answers for each individual.  For instance I have unfollowed a person simply because they were outright offensive ( racial slurs ) and I have unfollowed a person simply for talking about their product to much. I have also unfollowed people who have stopped twittering.

but what about my followers .. how many of them are actually still active today ?

Theres more to it than this survey and its a great start but Im not convinced its designed to find answers.

@Nicholas - ok. How about recommending a few questions and answers and I’ll put another one together? I’ve had the same response from a few people. There’s scope here.

Wow how much time have you got. okay well the key is to ask a question like twitter does , and why not use twitter to get the results. so lets the 6 basic questions

who/what/why/where/when and how and lets create six user accounts on twitter.  and place the question in the profile.

so

1. Who do you look to follow
2. What does twitter do for you
3. Why do you use twitter
4. Where does twitter work
5. When do you twitter
6. How would you improve twitter

Since every one can then respond something like.

@twitterWhy, it lets me share an idea or a random thought with the community whilst I work at home

You can then track the answers for each twitter account RSS feeds.

Unfollowing:
too noisy
too marketing
too dull
too annoying
too arrogant

hmmm same sort of reasons why you cut off conversations with people in real life really.

The other question is how often do you re-follow people to see if they have changed their tweet style… i know I’ve done that from time to time…

How many keep their feeds private?
And for what purpose?

Who’s left Twitter and why?

What doesn’t Twitter do well?
eg. it’s a live stream… event info is missed sometimes when posted up… must be online to notice.
The api doesn’t send keyword tracking to all client types but that’s a client side app issue… it also doesn’t show in the main feed though!

Anyway there are a whole host of other things and I’m sure you’ll come up with some great questions.

Thayer’s questionnaire is a start but it doesn’t cover everything but I wouldn’t expect any questionnaire to do that…

Question:  Should twitter allow a temp anonymous feed for sending Valentines messages to fellow tweeters

There’s no scope here for a bigger picture; a community or greater purpose, if you like. I can’t answer most of questions as they don’t really encompass why I use Twitter. There’s a post on my blog that will flesh it out a little more (if you care to!) but, to me, the multiple choice answers are putting words in my mouth. To me, the whole point of Twitter is that it’s not about individuals!

Hi everyone,

And thanks to Paul for linking to my survey :) 

As the link is to the survey and not my blog (http://thayer18.livejournal.com), you can’t see why I’m doing it, which would lay your comments at least a bit at rest.  I just came across the idea last night around 10pm, a bit tired but desperate to get a "finger in the air" idea of what people do feel about Twitter.  I’m paying for all costs personally, and doing it as a personal experiment. 

Sorry if the questions aren’t perfect, I’m not a professional survey type, just a social media girl who wanted to put some meat on the bones of an idea she’s been thinking on recently.

Super appreciative of all your help, and looking forward to openly sharing all the answers on my blog and anyone else’s who’d like to republish them.

Cheers!

Thayer
:o)

By the way, I’ve since Twittered I would love to do a follow up to this when the first "finger in the air" data settles.  If anyone would like to give me feedback and help me that’d be superb.

I really want to develop this survey and idea.  It’s something I feel really passionate about!

Thanks again, great to get such good coverage.

@Sarah are you secretly asking if it’s ok to send me a valentines?

@Danacea I agree, but, a bunch of individuals make up a community. Or as Shel says, it’s a village.

@Thayer I’ll add a link to the post, sorry for missing that. I’ve since stated that I’ll do another survey. I’d like to point out that I’d only do this after you’ve collated the information from yours. Even then, I’ll ensure to involve you - that could be to simply hand you the data. This is something that a lot of people have blogged about so it’s good timing.

@paulwalsh he he he you keep dreaming. You never know what could happen, some people believe in miracles.

Looking forward to seeing what ends up in the questionnaire.