Raleigh, NC
I'm a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University with an intense affection for all things FOSS. I'm particularly interested in leveraging Open Source in the classroom and expanding the commons of freely-licensed educational courseware. I'm a Computer Scientist, so FOSS is obviously a big part of what I'm interested in, but I would particularly like to see Open Source and Libre Culture penetrate the non-technical disciplines, since there's a whole lot more to it than computing!
Authored Comments
To respond to the poll, I'd have to say no... consider the differences in connotations between the phrases: "Follow me on Twitter" and "Listen to me on Twitter".
"Follow me" has a positive feel to it - it sounds like I'm going somewhere cool, and I'm inviting you to come along for the ride. "Listen to me", on the other hand, sounds kind of childish and self-absorbed. While it might be possible to put more of a positive spin on it, it would probably take more words than the simpler "Follow me" would, and we know Twitter is all about brevity.
The terms that are chosen by a social networking site are adopted because they evoke a certain feeling. Positive, inviting feelings encourage the communication that these social networking companies are trying to achieve. The terms are then used by the individuals and companies trying to get attention from users, and they want the terminology they use when plugging their social media presence to be just as positive and inviting.