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[driversoft]

Good question Bill! I don't know enough about Twitter to answer it, but I'd take an educated guess that the same may not apply. Twitter's far more civilised than Facebook, and seems to respect its users more. Might have to resurrect my Twitter account if Splosh HQ starts tweeting!

[EDIT] As far as I can tell, Twitter account holders can select to maintain their lists as private or public. So, I think if Splosh HQ were to maintain a private list, I'd be able, and willing to subscribe. I'm sure some of those with better knowledge than I about Twitter will respond.

[Bones]

Hmm Im on twitter purely to follow Rachel Riley lol (but have added others over time) but dont know a great deal about how it works tbh - is it possible to actually make a separate private list of people you follow driversoft? Its always seemed pretty open to me when Ive looked at who follows who etc - i was also "found" pretty easily on there by someone who I didnt particularly wish to be found by...

I had looked at making things private before but couldnt see a way to - and didnt really understand the "lists" thing...

Im sure someone will be able to help on that!

[driversoft]

I imagine one can be located on Twitter quite easily - that is, after all, the whole point of social networks - but as far as I'm aware the followee owns her/her list of followers, either in a private or public fashion - so being located on Twitter doesn't mean anything other than that you're there. We need an expert opinion here, but this might be a goer.

[EDIT] Right - a little research indicates that officially following someone is trackable and searchable with clever scripts. However - it seems it's possible to use "Twitter Lists" to effectively follow people without actually marking them as followed - and those lists are maintained by each individual, and can be private. So it seems possible for people to effectively anonomously "follow" a Splosh site - BUT this wouldn't count as a pukkah "follow". So... if Bill's purpose is to build a Splosh Twitter account with a large "follower" number, it's a no go - conversely, if Bill's intention is to be effectively followed without having a follower count indicating the score, then it seems to be workable. That makes sense to me, at least!

[Bones]

Cheers for the research!

So at present I follow around 40 people but thats all public - I went into "lists" and it says I have none

But if I create one and start following more interesting things, I can set that up as private? Sorry, Im being lazy here - I should probably just go try lol.

[driversoft]

That's my current understanding. I've not done it yet either.

[BillShipton]

Well, if you want to try it out, I am there to but currently as me (not Splosh!). Follow @Bill_Shipton

[driversoft]

Seems to work - I created a private list, added you Bill, and now when I click on the list I can see all of your tweets. It's not increased my following list (and I assume your following count is therefore the same), so everything looks cool. We have a mechanism - beware though - much like Facebook, Twitter really wants you to be 'public' and to 'follow' - but the process seems to works properly so long as you're careful what you click.

Perhaps Splosh tweets should be called 'messyges'...

[flanman]

Is it really worth worrying about that much!!!

[driversoft]

For anyone with an Android device (and I assume IoS too by default), I'm running a free app called Flipboard. It's a content aggregator, and offers a beautifully simple and uncluttered interface (looks lovely on my Nexus 7, for example) and has (amongst much else) onboard (and consistent) Facebook and Twitter clients that produce a display better than their respective websites! Recommend it to anyone. Bill's tweets and pictures are presented extremely well, for example.

To answer flanman: It depends on how much you value your privacy in any particular area of your life - for most aspects of my life, I don't care, so Facebook does (on the relatively few occasions I post anyway) - for some aspects I do care - so to me it is worth it, yes.

[Bones]

Perhaps Splosh tweets should be called 'messyges'...

Haha, nice one. I will check out the twitter business in a bit - am quite happy to see some more entertaining tweets in my "feed" - so the pressure is on now Bill

[Bones]

Hmm, set up a new list, marked it as private - found Bill and am following him through that list) but he does appear on my main followers page and I think has increased the number of people I follow...

Driver - if you have time could you do me a favour please? Not that i am too worried but would be nice to understand this better - could you find me (bones_iii) and see if Bill shows up in my followers list? Feel free to add me if you want also - regardless of result, I will continue to follow the good Sir Bill anyway

[driversoft]

You don't "Follow" Bill through the list - even though there's a button marked "Follow" next to it to encourage you to do just that - there's a much smaller mechanism to simply add Bill to the list - seems to have worked for me. I'll check out your request.

[EDIT] Yup, Bill appears in your followers list - but not in mine - I guess you clicked the "Follow" button when you added Bill to your list, no? The process worked for me. Do try Flipboard too, if you have an Android or IoS device - Bill's tweets look so much prettier when well laid out amongst his photographs.

[EDIT2] Added you to my private list and the procedure's definitely good - still no increase in followers (from 1 - you can see how often I use Twitter, although I'll use it more often now I can see Bills posts privately!) - however I can see a years worth of Bill's posts with none of yours - either Twitter displays each persons posts sequentially (not good!), or you've not made any public Tweets in the last year. Thinking about this of course, that's what I'd expect isn't it? Why would you have Tweeted anything to the world in general!

[Bones]

Ah yes I did click the follow button - damn thats some sneaky sh*t right there!

Cheers for that, I will go and re-jiggulate that and see if I can do it right this time!

I have an android phone but I dont tend to use it for twitter - and the settings on it are screwed enough as it is - despite it being set up identical to my mates it refuses to have anything to do with mms messages - instead they get randomly sent to my googlemail ?!

And yeh, ive probably tweeted 2/300 times but only in replies to people - who would be interested in what I have to say?! lmao.

Thanks for your help mate :thumbsup:

[driversoft]

So, to summarise for Bill:

People can either 'Follow' you (or Splosh, when it exists) on Twitter in the standard and public manner, or they can anonymously pseudo-follow you by creating a personal and private Twitter-list, adding you to it and then viewing your tweets through the list. Anyone who chooses the latter approach should be careful to avoid clicking the 'Follow' button at any point during the list construction.

A method for everyone then.

[driversoft]

I have an android phone but I dont tend to use it for twitter - and the settings on it are screwed enough as it is - despite it being set up identical to my mates it refuses to have anything to do with mms messages - instead they get randomly sent to my googlemail ?!

If you're getting text messages telling you to download picture messages then picture messaging must be disabled by your carrier for your handset - if picture messages somehow go straight to your Googlemail and bypass your handsets messaging process entirely then I've no idea what might be wrong! Talking of messaging, I'm running MySMS (Android and IoS) as my Android messaging client for both handset and tablet. It's incredibly useful, as it sucks your text messages and contact book up into the cloud on first handset installation, and subsequently you can send and receive texts (as long as your handset's switched on somewhere, say in your pocket) via your PC - a much better interface!