I know that many disagree with me on the Twitter thing, and it may well be that I am being completely thick. I am sure that it has great value for some – but not me. I used to use the geek chat rooms in 1997 to get help from anyone around the world, at any time of day or night – who lurked in chatrooms that were helpfully titled – so that I could find the expert I needed at 4am, with 6am US deadline looming.
Chatrooms got taken over by desperate housewives/singles/blah and the geeks retreated once more. Now we have Twitter – it is a chatroom, but a bad one – where you can:
1. Choose who is in the room (but not know whether they are there or not)
2. Be un-moderated
I do miss the geek help at 4am, but Twitter is not the answer for me. A well organised piece of chat software that kept out the ‘daters’ would be perfect.
Twitter seems to be a great place to read the stream of consciousness of great bloggers you admire; and survives on its ‘cool club’ status – I really don’t think this is sustainable.
I do realise that many people will look on me with complete disdain for having this opinion.
8 Comments
February 21, 2008 at 12:50 am
I’m not sure I agree twitter is for geeks. One of the things I liked was that I managed to get my non-geek friends on there using it a few days after I started using it. This is very rare.
Now people who haven’t even heard of twitter appreciate it (or hate it), as my updates go into facebook.
Even my Mum likes it, as my iChat status is updated by twitter, so she sees my name, and my status, with very little clue about why, but that doesn’t matter.
Anyway, all the geeks are still hiding on IRC and mailing lists.
I think you and me have a different measurement of ‘cool club’ status.
Personally, I love twitter because it constantly lets me know that people in far away places are still alive and well. I do care when so and so makes a particularly good cup of tea. These things really are important.
But that’s just one of the things that I make it. It’s as flexible as 140 characters…
February 21, 2008 at 10:08 am
James – you make me feel ancient!! As Steve Moore would say, somethings work for some people some of the time, but I take your points… can you show me where the geeks are?
February 24, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hi Emma, I’ve only dipped my toes in Twitter so far, and have yet to be convinced — but Howard Rheingold says he’s hooked and gives his reasons if you haven’t already seen them.
March 7, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Initially a skeptic I am now hooked on twitter.
You should check out Pauls view on twits and twerps!
http://blog.whatfettle.com/2008/01/05/are-you-a-twitter-twit-or-a-twerp/
February 3, 2009 at 4:05 pm
[...] have had a difficult relationship with it – detailed on this blog here and here and I banged on for a bit in various related posts not worth bringing up again. I could wang on [...]
July 12, 2009 at 9:59 pm
I still cant get the point.
unless you are a pervert or a stalker why would you follow someone you dont know and unless you are desperate for attention why would you want strangers to follow you.
Facebook and mobile texts are adequate to keep family and freinds updated on where you are and what you are doing. Professionals and thought provokers – well they have blogs which allow depper more complex thinking.
Twitter makes no sense, probably good for adolescents and advertisers and scammers.
my verdict- unsustainable and gone in a few years
August 17, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I completely disagree with myself now
November 7, 2009 at 3:58 am
Twitter is technology going backwards.. if Twitter came from 1982 (which it easily could have technology-wise, but not mass-accessibly trend-wise, then 50+ member live chat rooms would be all the pooh. you know what I’m getting at.
The same people who use twitter and facebook are the same people who would call someone a social failure/loser/etc for even the mere notion of “talking to people on the internet”, not to mention using full names and not handles. This is as backward as it gets.