They bill themselves as the “anti-Twitter.” What is it? It’s RescueTime, a service that keeps track of what you spend your time on. Here Tony Wright, CEO, tells me about the new service. This was part of our trip up to see interesting startups up in Seattle.
Here’s the discussion of this video over on FriendFeed.
I’m scared to use this tool because it would show that I’m spending too much time on Twitter and FriendFeed.
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Robert Scoble works at Fast Company.TV (title: Managing Director). Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.
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July 18th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
No reason to be scared. It’s better to know. I use MeeTimer and it’s helped increase my productivity. Now I schedule time to be social.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Not more time than what this guy spent on Tetris… you are still ok :-)
http://www.lucafiligheddu.com/2008/07/is-scoble-more-addicted-to-friendfeed-than-this-guy-to-tetris.html
July 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I don’t use Twitter . I have a real life and REAL friends.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
it is an interesting tool. BUT, it sucks way too much of my bandwidth and WAYYYY slows down boot-up time.
we’ll see if it can get better. i would use it if it didn’t appear to suck so much CPU from my already overtaxed macbookpro.
liviuX- why even post a comment? silly. someone didn’t get as many followers on twitter than they hoped for. i have a real life and real friends and an online social network with virtual friends - why not have both?
July 18th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
When Denis shared your question “How much time are you wasting on Twitter?”, two people responded “None.” (Just don’t ask about FriendFeed.)
July 18th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
LiviuX, I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one.
How much time do I waste on Twitter? None, not a member
How much time do I waste on FriendFeed? None, not a member
How much time do I waste on MySpace? None, not a member
How much time do I waste on Facebook? None, not a member
How much time do I waste on Scobleizer? A little bit.
July 18th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
@ LiviuX and S.P. Gass–some people are addicted to the Internet and spend too much time on it. You guys do have a point. But having a life and friends online and offline are not mutually exclusive.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:41 am
well i guess there is nothing to be afraid of. This would only show you how much time you wasting or utilizing.
July 19th, 2008 at 6:41 am
@liviux:
I agree, I don’t use Twitter I use the phone and email to contact my real friends and not some strangers that I might “friend.” i do have afacebook account which I check every day once and that’s it.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
People usually use twitter a lot when they have to promote something, perhaps like blog. For just tracking your peers it rarely gets overused.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I use Twitter and RescueTime, which tags twitter.com, twitterific and twhirl as ‘twitter’. In the month of june, I’ve spent almost 10 hours on Twitter - but that doesn’t include Twittering on my iPhone. On the other hand, I’m twittering on my phone when I can’t do much else, for example when I’m riding on a bus or a train, so I wouldn’t call that wasting my time.
The question is, is it a waste of time? I don’t think so. I’ve set a daily goal for my self at RescueTime: I shouldn’t spend more than 45 minutes a day on Twitter (if I exceed it, I get a warning by mail). I’m thinking of setting an additional goal: that I should use Twitter for at least 30 minutes a day :-)
July 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
By the way, real life and the internet are not totally separate things. I very regularly meet people IRL whom I’ve met on Twitter first. That has become my default method of networking and meeting people, at least business-wise.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:01 am
On Twitter? Zero. But I waste a lot of time just browsing. What one does with our time is not so much related to the tools we use, but to our mental attitude. If you’re a procrastinator, you will procrastinate no matter what. If you want to waste time (and I won’t discuss what is a waste and what isn’t), you will manage to waste it, on Twitter, on Friendfeed, or on plan old serial link BBSs :)
July 20th, 2008 at 11:16 am
They’re not REALLY the ‘anti-twitter’ though are they? Can we spell ‘bandwagon’ ?
Rescue Time is a great program, if a little addictive in itself - but it’s good to know where you’re spending time and be able to adapt accordingly.
Twitter doesn’t have to take up a lot of time unless you let it.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
If we need a tool for this, then well, yeah, that’s a whole different problem.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
In the kind of job that you work in, I guess it is normal that you spend as much time on Twitter or Friendfeed.
It’s sort of similar if stock brokers would use this for how much time they spend on Yahoo or Google finance.
I think for the majority, it’s a pretty trivial tool but when it’s your job to report or discover as much as possible, it could put a bit of perspective into the time you spend.
I mean it’s not a waste of time if the time spent is part of your profession but where I work, they blocked facebook and for good reason (well to them) because people don’t need this and it can add up to a lot of wasted hours for the company.
Twitter has many uses. I get to discover a lot of new things that I would normally never find (or new opinions that could change the way I see things) but it will never replace my real life friends and seeing them in person.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:33 am
I used RescueTime for a little while… then didn’t know what to do with all the feedback!! LOL It’s too gratifying to spend the time I spend on the sites I like - Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc. :)
Probably a good measure of one’s time spent is the results at the end of the day, and how/whether they’re in alignment with goals, mission, vision, values… and money in the bank!! :)
Cheers,
Mari
@marismith
July 21st, 2008 at 4:22 am
It is not a waste of time when Twitter surpasses Google in referrals to your blog:
http://skitch.com/mattsurfs/tm33/all-traffic-sources-google-analytics
- @mattsurfs
July 21st, 2008 at 6:53 am
Wow… I waste way too much time.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Asking me this question would be no different than asking me how much time I waste trying to get a date with Rosie O’Donnel. None! Because I have no interest in either
July 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
A Twitter here and a Twitter there is alright. It’s only a waste of time if you constantly tweet every move you make.
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Too much time on Twitter, especially this week.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:09 am
Pretty low, because I dont have much followers :)
July 27th, 2008 at 2:18 am
I spend some time on Twitter every day.It´s quite addictive :)
July 27th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for the RescueTime link.
What’s worse is signing on and realizing you lost 3/4 of your friends and followers