Twitter, what is it good for? This question is a good question for two reason, it asks the reasoning for the service and it a wonderful through back to the song War by Edwin Starr. If you don’t know what twitter is a micro-blogging service, but if I had to explain it to someone in a couple of words, I would say it is like facebook statuses on crack. I have discussed facebook statuses before in another post, but I have recently got back into the service and I thought I would share my thoughts.
I have found lately that many of the podcasts that I am subcribed to like Buzz out loud and diggnation seem to talk none stop about twitter and always ask to follow them at the end of their shows. In tech news, it seems that facebook is really old hat and all they want to talk about is this new and amazing thing. This is not new, the same thing happened when facebook came along, everyone was on MySpace, then the new cool kid on the block came along. I got kind of sick of them talking about it and decided not to sign up for an account, just becuase it was a new service. But in the end I signed up for an account is because a number of blogs that I read, like CSS-Tricks and bartelme have massive follow me likes on within they designs. I signed up for an account and it sat there for a time, no followers, so I deleted it.
It was only months later until I back into the service, because when watching Jonathan Ross show, Stephen Fry was a guest on the show and both of them were talking about having twitter accounts. I thought that if Stephen Fry was on the service, he might have something interesting to say, so I might as well give it a go. How wrong could I be, the other day, he posted before and after pictures of his haircut. I mean come on, how vain can a person be to post that. It turns out that they are a number of so call famous people on twitter. All of them seem to think that everyone is interesting is every little fact of they lives.
So back to the question in hand, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing is my answer. I think that is everything wrong with the internet, as it is short form content (as there is a limit of 140 characters) for those that have a very short attendation spans. It allows people to be extremely vain and talk about the stupid manusha of they lives. The worse example of twitter is the story of the man who twittered the results of a trail before the judge read out the judgement, which has caused a mistrial. The only use of have got from it has been a couple of links to interesting projects or videos. They are other services for this, such as delicious and Digg that are much better for social bookmarking.
If you interesting in following me, I am @thespacedmonkey. It automatically imports the posts for this blog and I do, from time to time post interesting links up there. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother..
Have any thoughts about this post? If so, tell me what you think by leaving a comment. If you want to hear more of my thoughts, follow me on Twitter.
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9 Responses to “Twitter, what is it good for?”
March 18th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I think that twitter is a lot like facebook, it is designed to show other what you have been doing lately. But twitter is only one part of facebook, the statuses and personally what I think is the weakest section of the site. Of all the things that people should do with they time, write one lines about what they doing is a gaint waste of time. If you are going to bother to put that on the internet, I wouldn’t it be better to take pictures and show me what you are doing. Even the most interesting people on twitter talk about what food they are eating or are replying to message i have never seen.
I just don’t understand why people bother with twitter, it sucks!
March 18th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Ha haa, nah, Twiiter is good, you just dont use it enough to find it interesting. If knowing what people are upto isnt your thing then obviously its not for you. But its for sharing what your upto and so you can see what lots of interesting people are upto. And its not trying to be facebook, facebook is trying to be it. Facebook is loads bigger and more usefull than Twitter but thats the beauty of twitter its pointless but great at the same time. Twitter is also a lot more general you can follow anyone, and noone cares if they are your friend or not, but facebook is for friends. Big difference.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
I think your right, twitter less about your close friensd and more about following interesting people. The thing is, there are interesting people that I would like to follow but I don’t want to know that Kevin Rose is having a nice burger in San fan, I will never go to the place he is talkin about. I like people that post interesting links. I don’t think it is facebook, I think facebook is better in lots of ways. I just don’t think that I have a place for twitter in my life. I will keep trying with it through. But you have to admit it is a little pointless right..
March 19th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I personally find it more interesting to hear what my friends have to say. This is because I don’t see them all as often as I’m not at Uni this year. It’s good to see what they are up to without constantly bugging them with the “hi, how are you?” instant message template.
It was also interesting when the Phoenix Mars lander (by lander, I mean someone at NASA) was tweeting about the science it was doing.
In recent months twitter has been filling up with “celebs” left right and center. If I’m really honest, most of them don’t have anything interesting to say.
March 20th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I actually use facebook more than Twitter because it provides more options and things to do, but facebook has copied Twitter on so many things since Twitter became an issue against facebook. I don’t think Twitter will ever become like facebook, but they are both social networks that are competing, and both of their main focus is status updates. Because most social networks are heading towards that idea of status updates, I have been a part of creating a application called Status King! It has the funniest status updates of all time. It is a lot of fun and almost anyone would enjoy it. Come submit some funny statuses and it and give it a try. Or you can just take statuses that are already on there and use them for yourself.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Personally I find that Twitter is kind of like a little blog with short updates. It make sense but I never think of it as a social networking site.
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March 18th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
You’ve completley missed the whole point of Twitter. It is NOT the next facebook and has NEVER wanted to be. Its simplicity is what you are missing. It is simply designed for people to stalk other people. Its designed so you can follow people and just see what they are upto, its a people thing not an information thing. People let everyone who follows them know what they are doing at a particular moment, and Stephen Fry added the picture of his haircut, because lots of people are interested in what his new style was like. Its meant to be harmless fun. And Stephen Fry is FAR from being vein. Twitter is a lttle page you visit from time to time and get an idea of what lots of people happen to be doing or discussing. Its nothig like facebook, and facebook shouldn’t be trying to copy it. And you shouldn’t be slagging it off because you dont have anyone interesting to follow. It is a website for fullfilling a persons nosyness and everyone in the world likes to be a bit nosey, and twitter is perfect for that. Its for sharing experiences and updating people on what your upto.