A recent update to the Twitter app (I’m using the Android version) has resulted in the most pointlessly annoying thing Twitter has done in a long time. Twitter is trying to be smart, and is pro-actively sending notifications to tell me when several people I follow are discussing a common subject.
But the problem is that I know that.
I have a varied set of interests and I tend to follow groups of people who share that interest.
I follow a number of football writers, and it’s not exactly surprising when they’re all talking about football during football matches.
I follow a number of tennis writers and broadcasters, and again it’s not surprising when they’re all talking about the Australian Open.
I follow a number cyclists, cycling writers and broadcasters, and… well you know what’s coming.
Telling me that people are talking about something that is happening right now is no interest. I know when sports fixtures are taking place thanks. I can go on Twitter to see the buzz if I want to.
Similarly, I’m really not interested when people I follow are discussing shoddy “reality” shows on TV. Maybe the fact I’m not using Twitter to talk about such garbage suggests that I’m not interested?
One way or another, the only thing I can do is try to turn off these notifications. It’s not at all clear in the options how to do this. And if I end up turning off other notifications as a by-product then so be it. Of course that makes Twitter less useful rather than more.
[Update] I think I have a solution to this problem which you can read here.
Comments
10 responses to “Twitter Notifications”
It’s not just a Beta issue – I have it too.
What annoys me is that the people/organisations Twitter tells me to follow are the same ones I’m trying to avoid. Dear Twitter, I do talk to my friends you know. And if they are following someone and I’m not, maybe that’s because I don’t actually want to!
I just turn most notifications off – and all off for Android. I find them nothing more than unnecesary ‘clutter’ anyway. Like Ash, if I’m not following certain people it’s because I don’t want to – and I don’t generally follow celebs either.
Notifications can be useful if someone’s mentioned you. While I’m a pretty frequent Twitter user, there may be a gap of many hours if I didn’t know. On the otherhand, you can get SMS notifications as well.
Another annoyance is that email alerts for Direct Messages no longer include the actual message. You’re invited to visit Twitter to see the message – another click. On the other hand, SMS notifications for DMs still include the message!
Ticking the “Mentions Only” box in “Notifications timeline” does not seem to stop the subject notifications from Twitter. Just had a needless rejoinder to discuss the Grammys on Twitter.
#1 I’m not American.
#2 They’re not shown here.
#3 I don’t care about them either way.
Twitter notifications don’t annoy me because I never see them in my inbox. I have an email rule that just filters them all to the Trash. Anyone who replies to, retweets, or DM’s me will show in my Twitter client. And for those people whose Tweets I’m likely to miss because of timezone issues (people I follow from England for example), I have a Twitter List for those.
Sorry – I should have been clearer. This is about the official Twitter client – the Android version in my case.
Emails are different, and I send them to a Twitter subfolder via Gmail rules (rather than just “Social”). Note that there are some quite decent opt-in/out options in Twitter to determine what you get sent. That could remove a lot of email that you don’t want: https://twitter.com/settings/notifications
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This was the first Google result when I searched about e-mail DM notifications no longer containing the actual message (for a while it was in the text version so you could at least open the message source to get it). It annoys me too because I liked having the e-mails as a record of the DMs I’d received.
I also use Gmail filters to keep most notifications out of my inbox (there are some I do want to see), though the annoying thing is that Twitter keeps adding new e-mails and changing the subject lines, like “so-and-so mentioned you in a photo!” as opposed to “so-and-so mentioned you in a tweet!”
(I realize your OP was about the Android client but it looks like you and I are the only ones on the internet who pay attention to the e-mail notifications!)
– RG>
Hi RG,
You’re right that this is an annoying new “feature” of Twitter emails – that it takes you more clicks to find out what people are saying.
So far it seems that if you have Twitter set to send SMS messages when you receive DMs you get the message. But that doesn’t help you keep a Gmail backup of what people sent. I guess you might either use an app on your phone to autoforward DM SMSes to your email where you could filter them away safely.
An option that doesn’t seem to be available is to use IFTTT. While you can use it to create DMs (e.g. if someone follows you, or your favourite team’s sports results as they happen), I don’t think Twitter will let IFTTT read your DMs and do something with them.
Recent results announcements from Twitter suggest that some of this is to get everyone to log into Twitter a bit more because usage isn’t as high as they’d like.
I’d suggest that it’s just likely to make as angrier with Twitter.