10 People Who Shouldn’t Write About Twitter

About an hour ago, Kelly Phillips Erb, aka TaxGirl, put an entry on Twitter that I think most regular users of the service would agree with:

Some people obviously see value to twitter, and some think it’s a waste of time.  Everyone has a right to critique, so that’s not (entirely) at issue. But when it comes to writing about the nuances of Twitter (or any web tool for that matter) – those ‘how to become a success‘ type stories – having a little experience should be a prerequisite. No?  Frankly, there are a few ‘personas’ out there that I think most of us wish would stop before they start.

Here are my ‘top-10 tests’ to figure out if you should stay away from that fashionable Twitter article:

1. You don’t have an account.
2. You have an account, but have six tweets to your name.
3. You followed six hundred people with no tweets in your account, and can’t figure out why no one returned the favour.
4. You’ve been on (but mostly off) the service for less than three months.
5. You’re a journalist and your editor told you to start an account.
6. You’re a journalist who’s opened an account expressly to write a story about twitter.
7. You’re evaluating the ROI of twitter as a business development tool.
8. You’re a marketing consultant and you think “it’s about time” to write about this twitter thing.
9. You’re intentionally set to write a Twitter critique article purely for the backlash & media exposure.
10. You’re David Letterman. (ok, funny filler. enjoy!)