(no subject)
I think I've worked out why I don't like Twitter.
No one person is always funny, or insightful, or entertaining. The value of the internet is that everyone has an equal platform. I could follow Stephen Fry, but the chances are that when Stephen Fry writes something mildly amusing, it's almost certain that 5 other people will write something in response which is much funnier/insightful/more entertaining.
The problem with Twitter is you don't see the dialogue, just half the conversation. It's like hearing someone talking on the phone on the train - although it's possible to gleam part of the conversation, you don't get the dialogue. Even worse, you can't follow everyone.
Twitter references backwards (so you can see which post is being replied to), but not forwards - if someone writes a question, there's no way to see all answers to that one specific post. If Stephen Fry writes something funny, you can't see the funnier replies. Where someone does write a funny response, you don't see the original post - you quite literally get the punchline before the joke. It's just people constantly spewing out their thoughts, one way; hoping that they say enough funny things for people to follow them and hear half of a different dialog.
The 140 character limit is an archiac subset of a 1984 standard. It seems absolutely absurd that we have mobile phones thousands of times more powerful that NASA's computers which landed on the moon, which are capable of storing and transmitting thousands of books in their memory, and featuring digital cameras can capture massive amounts of data almost instantly:- yet with Twitter we can't even communicate a full sentence. It's like having a Bugatti Veyron and using it to commute from Maidenhead to Slough; like having a Stradivarius and only playing Ke$ha songs with it.
Nice idea, terrible HCI implementation, a wasted use of technology.
No one person is always funny, or insightful, or entertaining. The value of the internet is that everyone has an equal platform. I could follow Stephen Fry, but the chances are that when Stephen Fry writes something mildly amusing, it's almost certain that 5 other people will write something in response which is much funnier/insightful/more entertaining.
The problem with Twitter is you don't see the dialogue, just half the conversation. It's like hearing someone talking on the phone on the train - although it's possible to gleam part of the conversation, you don't get the dialogue. Even worse, you can't follow everyone.
Twitter references backwards (so you can see which post is being replied to), but not forwards - if someone writes a question, there's no way to see all answers to that one specific post. If Stephen Fry writes something funny, you can't see the funnier replies. Where someone does write a funny response, you don't see the original post - you quite literally get the punchline before the joke. It's just people constantly spewing out their thoughts, one way; hoping that they say enough funny things for people to follow them and hear half of a different dialog.
The 140 character limit is an archiac subset of a 1984 standard. It seems absolutely absurd that we have mobile phones thousands of times more powerful that NASA's computers which landed on the moon, which are capable of storing and transmitting thousands of books in their memory, and featuring digital cameras can capture massive amounts of data almost instantly:- yet with Twitter we can't even communicate a full sentence. It's like having a Bugatti Veyron and using it to commute from Maidenhead to Slough; like having a Stradivarius and only playing Ke$ha songs with it.
Nice idea, terrible HCI implementation, a wasted use of technology.