My anti-tweet explanation of why I like twitter
I wrote this up in response to stannex soliciting opinions on twitter and like services. With a few edits, I present it here.
I use twitter, and I find it amusing and useful. Ironically, I sometimes think I don’t exactly get it, but writing this up this response has been enlightening.
A few of the uses I get out of twitter are:
*Quick, quirky communication with friends/acquaintances/co-workers. You can easily post a funny observation or more general “status report” in 140 words or less.
*Immediacy of communication. I use twitter mostly through SMS, so I receive tweets passively, that is I don’t have to actively go to the RSS feed or blog to check stuff out. The info comes to me. Then if desired I can check it out immediately. (Admittedly, I don’t use SMS with all I follow.)
*”Cyber-stalking” celebrities. There’s a decent chunk of quasi-celeb geek culture types using twitter. The ones that immediately come to mind with decent name recognition would be Warren Ellis, Will Wheaton, Scott Kurtz and a couple of the Heroes actors.
*”Utility” feeds. CNN Breaking News is a great example. Top flight breaking news comes to me on my phone. I learn it immediately rather than waiting or missing it if I don’t happen to be at a computer. One of my favorites is cliqueclack’s “What’s new on TV tonight.” Seems minor, but it’s highly useful. There were a couple of excellent Hurricane Ike feeds. Some politicians used it well during the campaign season. Some folks only tweet a link to their new blog post.
In terms of what I tweet, it’s usually only first category uses with some element of the immediacy reason coming into play. Sometimes there’s instant feedback which can fun and/or comforting. (I don’t qualify for 3 and lack useful enough info for #4, except for the occasional pimp-my-lj tweet.)
Also, it’s not difficult to get a fully constructed, grammatically correct sentence or two in 140 characters or less.
Just giving a perspective from a user. FWIW, YMMV, etc. etc.