Twitter, or Not To Twitter
Posted in SoapBox by Dan at 9:44 pm
This post was published 1 year 7 months 13 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.
Ok, I’ve flirted with Twitter before, I just never understood it. What purpose does Twitter serve for you? Why should anyone use it? Should I use it again? Does anybody care about people’s passing thoughts?
Sound off in the comments!
People don’t care about your thoughts, I think of it as a way to see what I have been thinking in the past days or even years, sorta like a quick entry to a journal but not personal. Or you can look at it like a blog do people really care what you write? not really, I think least I think so, but it’s sometimes entertaining..
In my opinion Twitter, as well as every other “social network service” has its purpose and audience, if you don’t feel a need for it now, don’t worry about it, if in the future you change your mind about it, wether or not it is because of the purpose someone gives you, then at that point, use it. But if you seriously just don’t care for it. Don’t worry about it.
As for your question, I see Twitter/Pownce/Jaiku/ (any others? ) as a means to quickly and EASILY communicate with ALL of your friends instantly, and by communicate I mean share links/daily activities/ stupid useless information/ and or simply update your friends on whats currently going on in life.
As for blogging, when it first started it pretty much was useless, and now almost every blog out there is full of useful or at least informational opinions. To better differentiate the difference between a blog post and a Tweet is definitely the size of the post and a few other small details.
inmo, most of the posts on this blog are better suited for a social network site like Pownce, Twitter, Jauki and w/e other service is out there.
This particular article happens to be a question and a small thought/opinion, and your expecting several responses, most of these social networking services allow for direct responses to posts. So this would have been better suited for that (again in my opinion) if you were actually using it.
I guess its just the evolution of the internet, blogs are less about peoples lives then they were where say, 5 years ago. Now lots of people are using blogs to try and shine on their portfolio, or using blogs for sharing personal reviews and some even for product updates.
The focus of blogs has many MANY shades of grey. And I feel it’s definitely going to continue to get grayer as more features are added to them. They’re so widely used because of their simplicity on adding content to a website. But thats why CMS’s (?) are for but they offer to many options for most people.
I don’t know dude, it works for me I think Twitter pretty simple (as simple as it can get) and for some, that is a problem.
Try looking at other services, even though they aren’t as popular.
Just my 200 cents ;)
http://twitter.com/jesusfranco
PS: Love the site btw
I think it fills the addiction people have with “blogging” in general. In other words, it’s useless and only is here because people are so obsessed with sharing their every waking moment.
It’s two parts to me. One is a personal thoughts recorder (not so personal, but who cares). The other is the ability to directly interact with the big names in the web industry.
If you ever get around to wanting to use it, feel free to follow me: http://twitter.com/donwilson
I’m pretty sure that I’m an authority on this question. (http://twitter.com/adamjackson)
I started following you on Twitter nearly a year ago when you first joined. I do think you should dive back into it. I use it for nearly all comunications nowadays. Give me a call Dan and I’ll convince you to switch.
I just use twitter for fun but sometimes, it has been a good communication system. We are holding a Sinhala Blog Marathon and we use it to give out notifications too. Well it has it’s uses, personal preference I think. If you have a good base of twittering friends, it’s a nice experience.
http://twitter.com/malinthe
“Dear dairy…” … well I guess it’s the same reason why people write diaries. Only in this case it’s open and spread out in the world. In my opinion it is more creative to write your own blog in PHP, make it what you really want and make it to a biosphere with many readers. That works only if you have to say something interesting or at least funny. If not – don’t do it. Write it on paper.
This is the video that got me interested.
http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter
Commoncraft does a great job of explaining why it is useful at all.
TO twitter, and Dan I can’t post directly to the site again.
created an account…. never f’in use it.
Personally, I love Twitter. It just doesn’t become useful or fun unless you are following and are being followed by at least 20 people. After that, then it becomes a great place to gauge reactions to things, catch up on breaking news, or just to make plans with friends. Twitter is something of an aquired taste, but once you find your niche in it, Twitter becomes invaluable in ways other social networks could never be. Just my two cents.
Twitter is useful, you just need to be creative. For example, you can use Twitter to make your plants tell you when they need watering ;-)
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/02/how_to_make_plants_talk_t.html
To me twitter is:
* A time capsule for your one liner thoughts.
* A place to get feedback on ideas or discover new things
* Chat software where you are the channel
* Condensed thought space.
* Gaming platform (colorwar2008.com)
* Informal way of digitally nudging others.
….and to have that on your desktop or in your pocket, hi-fi with web or lo-fi with sms is pretty darn flexible and pervasive.
Aside from the ‘personal promotion’ side of Twitter, I think it might be a potentially useful tool to keep small communities or special interest groups quickly and easily informed. One example might be for expat communities to have accounts and then keep updating them in with basic travel plans or with instructions to respond to a crisis (assuming that the emergency hadn’t overtaken the ability to get online or receive text messages).
The reliability of Twitter might make me think twice about using the service as a critical communications tool, but it makes a nice addition to a variety of ways of staying in touch or using a diversity of communication channels.
I just signed up to twitter, I’m really note sure what the point in it is.