Twit-out Preparation: Are you ready?

20 May 2008

Tomorrow, May 21, is the Twit-out. If you’re lost read the many many posts out there regarding the subject. This post is for those who wish to participate and could use a few pointers on how to truly avoid Twitter.

Remove Twitter clients from your startup routines. Whether they be automatic, or manual, modify your startup routines to remove Twhirl, Snitter, Snakr, Alert Thingy, Twitterrific, and the like from starting automatically.

Disable web browser Twitter features. If you use a Firefox plugin, Flock, or any socially enabled browser, disable Twitter within them.

Turn off Twitter in your social aggregators. If you use FriendFeed, hide ALL Twitter items. Whether they have comments or likes, hide them. If you use Profilactic or SocialThing, disable Twitter integration.

Disable Twitter.com in your browser. The easiest way I find is to modify your hosts file and point twitter.com to 127.0.0.1. If you use OpenDNS, you easily block the website from the configuration pages there.

Turn off Google Talk notifications. In your Jabber client, send an “off” message to the Twitter IM bot to stop receiving notifications.

Avoid reading blogs that talk about Twitter. You know who they are.

Find another outlet. Personally, I’m going to totally use FriendFeed during the Twit-out, but if you wish, use Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, or whatever your favorite social website is. It is my recommendation to use FriendFeed due to the great discussions that will take place surrounding the Twit-out.

Start weaning yourself today. I suggest utilizing some of these techniques today in order to prepare for tomorrow. For example, I have no Twitter clients open, Google talk disabled, and I’m updating my status at FriendFeed. Tomorrow, I’ll go completely cold turkey.

Go offline. Easiest method of all. Go completely offline and enjoy the outdoors, family and friends. Human contact can be a good thing at times.

If you are participating in the Twit-out tomorrow, what do you recommend? Leave your suggestions in the comments please.