Okay, let me tell you about this thing I started calling my “twitter ultimate team”. It wasn’t some official feature, just something I kinda built for myself.
So, I was getting swamped on Twitter. You know how it is. Just endless noise, arguments, random stuff. I felt like I was missing the good bits, the actual useful information I originally signed up for. I needed a way to cut through the junk.
Getting Started – The Idea
I thought, what if I could build a sort of ‘dream team’ of accounts? Not just famous people, but folks who consistently shared solid stuff in the areas I cared about. Like, my own personal, curated feed. An “ultimate team” for information, I guess.
First thing I did was grab a notebook, old school style. I wrote down the main topics I really wanted to follow closely. For me, it was stuff like indie game development, maybe some specific coding things, and definitely updates on retro computing.
The Grunt Work – Finding the Players
Then came the actual work. I started searching. I used Twitter’s search, obviously, looking for keywords related to my topics. But I didn’t just follow anyone. I’d check their profile, scroll back through their last 20-30 tweets. Were they actually sharing useful stuff? Or just retweeting memes and getting into fights? It took ages.
I also looked at who the people I already respected were following and interacting with. That was a good source. If someone I trusted liked someone else’s content, maybe I would too. It was like scouting for talent.
Here’s kinda what I looked for:
- People sharing practical tips or insights.
- Accounts linking to interesting articles or resources (but not just links).
- Developers talking about their process, warts and all.
- Folks asking good questions or starting useful discussions.
- Crucially, people who seemed, you know, relatively sane.
I made a private Twitter List called “Potential Team”. Every time I found a promising account, I added them there instead of following directly. This was key. It let me watch their feed for a week or two without cluttering my main timeline.
Refining the Squad – Making Cuts
After a few weeks, I reviewed that “Potential Team” list. Some people just didn’t make the cut. Maybe they went off-topic, posted way too much, or just weren’t as helpful as I first thought. So, I removed them from the list. No hard feelings, just curating my experience.
The ones who consistently delivered value? Those were the ones I actually followed. And I started organizing them into more specific private lists, like “GameDev Gems”, “Code Talk”, “Retro Vibes”.
The Result – Was it “Ultimate”?
So now, instead of drowning in the main feed, I mostly check my specific lists. It’s way more focused. I get the signal, less of the noise. Is it perfect? Nah. People change, accounts go inactive, new interesting folks pop up. It’s an ongoing thing. You gotta keep scouting, keep pruning the list.
It’s not really an “ultimate team” like in sports, fixed and done. It’s more like maintaining a garden. You plant good seeds, water them (check their posts), and pull out the weeds (unfollow or remove from lists). It takes effort, yeah, but honestly? My Twitter experience is so much better now. Way less stressful, way more useful. Just took a bit of methodical work upfront.
