@linnetwoods freelance writer living on a schooner in Mallorca

Q1 Real name / Twitter user name

Linnet Woods / linnetwoods

Q2 Location

Aboard the schooner Leopard Normand III currently in Mallorca

Q3Website

http://www.linnetwoods.com

Q4 Bio

I live aboard a schooner with my man and a cat… I’m a freelance writer and web mangler…

Q5 When did you start using Twitter and how were you introduced to it?

Some time in summer but only properly since November 2008.

Q6 What are the main reasons you use Twitter (e.g. business, marketing, fun, community etc)?

Fun, community, business, work – it’s like any other social circle, one has different relationships with different people one meets there.

Q7 What aspects of Twitter do you love?…

The immediacy of contact, the brevity of message and the potential to join in conversations and activities in a relaxed way, meeting interesting people without pressure.

Q8 …and dislike (if any)?

The interface is pretty non-user friendly in some ways but other apps get one past that hurdle.

Q9 If you could make changes to Twitter what would they be?

I’d want to be able to save tweets to a searchable location and keep them rather than have Twitter delete them after so many tweets have gone past (or whatever criteria it is that means the oldest tweets are beyond reach).

Q10 What Twitter apps do you use to Tweet from? (e.g. main Twitter site/ Twitterriffic / Tweetdeck etc)

TweetDeck and the main Twitter site.

Q11 What are your criteria for following someone?

I will follow anyone who follows me that is a human or respectable entity and knows how to behave appropriately in decent company plus I follow people recommended by others or across whom I come in other people’s tweets and who seem interesting.

Q12 What type of behaviour would make you unfollow someone?

More than very occasional swearing, which I take as an indication of a person being too mentally lazy to think of the word they are replacing with a profanity. Blatant, spamming. Any kind of nasty incitement to hostility or evidence of intent to cause pain or real embarrassment to others.

Q13 What tips do you have for newbies?

Do not be tempted to let your following get too far ahead of your follower numbers – at 2000 follows, Twitter will refuse to allow you to follow any more people until your follower count has caught up, which it is unlikely to do if you are not following new people back.

Q14  How do you find new people to follow (e.g. Twellow, Summize, friends of friends etc)?

Mainly I follow back new followers (at the rate of about 30 a day) but I also follow anyone recommended by someone I already like.

Q15  Qwitter – do you use it? If someone unfollows you do you reciprocate?

I tried Qwitter but didn’t really enjoy using it – people will come and go and there is no vast benefit to knowing at what juncture they’ve done the going. I unfollow people who have unfollowed me, if I come across them whilst reviewing my Twitter group, if they do not seem worthy of an unreciprocated follow. News tweeters, for example, I am perfectly happy to follow without reciprocation.

Some bimbo who simply wanted to meet as many of my rich acquaintances as she could on the way through, on the other hand, does not, in my opinion, warrant a one-way relationship.

Q16 If you agree that Twitter should be monetized do you have any suggestions how?

Yes, I believe it would be a good idea to charge $1 per month or $10 per year if paid in advance to each personal/small business account holder and, perhaps, a higher fee to those with corporate accounts. At $10 per person per year, the owners of Twitter could be hugely wealthy. More would put people off. Less would not be worth administrating. There could be a system of being able to sponsor others for their annual membership so that one could help those in financial straits to continue using the service.

Q17  Who do you enjoy following the most?

It would be impossible to select few enough names to fit here without leaving out some really great people but, in general I most enjoy those who make me laugh, think and/or learn and preferably all three things combined

Q18 How do you see the future of Twitter?

It is my belief that Twitter will continue to be a great way of meeting people and getting to know them in a public setting where there is every chance that someone will disabuse one of any illusions if a person misrepresents themselves or what they are capable of.

If you’d like to feature on Tweetabix or know someone you think would be interested in participating please contact Richard McKay on Twitter or email him at ballymascanlon@gmail.com