I’ve suddenly heard so much about this Twitter thing and frankly I don’t get it. Chris M (imod.co.za) and Nic (LongComplexGreekSurname.com) are talking about it but frankly I don’t understand the fuss.
For those of you not in the know (much like myself) Wikipedia defines Twitter as such:
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific.
So basically I send my friends short 140 character messages to my friends? Wow, when did eloquence die and how could I have missed the funeral? I mean 140 characters is nothing and frankly I’d rather get a coffee in real life. Maybe I’m just bitter as I have no friends on Twitter but really, there must be betters ways of communicating? This just seems like rip off of the status message feature in Facebook.
At the end of the day there are so many, less restrictive methods of communicating online. You can send a message on Facebook, or MSN someone and if you’re twelve Mxit them. You could even Skype them and have a proper conversation. Those desperate enough can even talk to “real people” on World of Warcraft. All I’m saying is that there are so many methods of interacting with people online, why would we need such a short sighted, limiting attempt at conversation? Twitter makes no sense to me and I’m sure it’s a fad that will die down asap.
Seriously, if you’re having full on conversations via a 140 character Twitter message then something has gone very, very wrong with your life. Get some sunlight and get a girlfriend.
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Hi Saulk
It took me a while to understand what the fuss was about but once I saw how it was being used it started making sense. Most people that I “follow” on twitter don’t use it as a status updater at all.
Instead they use it more or less as a chat service (think IM) You might ask why not just use IM then? Well there is one very good reason and that is that twitter allows many people to participate in an open conversation if used in this way. IM is (for the most part) only a 1-1 conversation.
Stii (stii.za.net) wrote a really good post recently on how he uses twitter. If you are familiar with IRC, twitter (at least as used by my friends) is somewhere between IM and IRC.
Hope that helps
Regards
You’re right if you look at it that way. Micro-blogging is boring and pretty much senseless. Twitter is not. We had a mini debate going on between me and Paul yesterday. A lot of the latest and greatest get announced on the Twitter channel. The keyword tracking feature is simply fantastic. Remember IRC? Twitter is used as that to an extent too. Twitter is supposedly a simple micro-blogging service, yet it is so much more and that is kind of hard to explain.
I love the way I can follow a number of people and just get the odd little update as to what they are doing. There’s no haste to have to reply to any messages either, which means it’s not intrusive.
It’s not exactly mind blowing or revolutionary, but it’s something new for us geeks to play with
Hey guys, thanks so much for the comments.
To continue my social experiment I’m going to add you all to my Twitter friends list (Chris is already there) and see what I can make of it then. Hopefully I can understand it because frankly the idea of: “It’s like IRC” means we should just use some Java chat function on a site.
Let me get into it and report back…
And don’t forget that part of the attraction is that it’s multiplatform: website, standalone apps, instant messenger, email (can you send email updates) and mobile (I use Opera Mini and m.twitter.com since my phone doesn’t support Fring or Yeigo).
Hey Simone, thanks for the Twitter add!
I started using m.twitter.com today and so far so good!
Slowly slowly getting into it which worries me as I lost hours due to the devil Facebook.
Hey Saul, I was on the same page as you a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve given twitter a good go and I have definitely found a place for it. I’ve got to agree with Stii when he says a lot of the latest and greatest stuff gets announced on twitter – latest sites, networks and interesting blogposts I pick most of them up using twitter. Makes sense from a point of view of hooking up with like minded industry ppl to stay ahead.
Funny, you could have made your entire point in 140 characters… or less.
Twitter is dof.
Twitter is totally useless, the people who use it must be crazy…. why would i spend time in my life on submitting dull non interesting micro-blogs??
WTF i also dont understand. Or maybe i do understand it: it is stupid.
well im still not getting …please follow me at KaaCeeangelo