how I learned to stop worrying and tolerate teh Twitter

[terrencechan]

A very long time ago, at least in internet-time, I ranted about the rise of Twitter. In that post I expressed my lamentations that Twitter would replace actual intelligent thought on the internet and was mind-numbingly narcissistic and banal. I also claimed that I would never use Twitter to post my own personal banalities but instead use it only

Comments

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[e584]

If it's designed to replace well thought out detailed reasoning, then yeah twitter's a bad idea. However, it's precisely the mundanery that I think is most interesting about a good twitter feed. When people do it well, you get little insights into their lives and how they see the world, which over time builds into a really fascinating picture of someone else's life in a way that I really think is different to other media.

I signed up thinking it would be an interesting chance for some slightly oddball internet creativity, which never quite happened, but I'm still there (I had to look to find when I started - the beginning of '09). I couldn't care less about following someone's half hourly chip counts, and a lot of celebrity twitters are a PR-driven abomination, but I do think there's a real value in good twitter. Even if 75%+ accounts are rubbish, I'm not sure that really is much different to Blogging/Journalism/novel writing/you name it.

[solitairexl]

I actually love twitter. Its like having normal conversations sporadically with people all over the world. You get the chance to shout all the little nothings that roll around in your head, and once in a while you actually connect with someone who feels exactly the same way. I like it more than any other social networking platform. LJ is too static, and most of the time no one is watching or listening. Facebook is too personal. Twitter is the one place where you can be yourself, and be outrageous at the same time. You can be thoughtful, intuitive, and yet be banal and fun. Twitter can be any thing you want it to be and that in itself is a victory for social networking.

[rcousine]

Interesting graph. For what it's worth, I thought I was a bit late to the Twitter party, having joined in...December 2007.

Not that it did any good: 397 followers woot woot. (mind you, that's about 20x my blog readership).

You're bang-on about Twitter, for better or worse, absorbing the blogging itch (really, the long-form writing itch), and I hear person after person (including myself) noting the same effect.

The other thing I notice is a Facebook effect. I have only a rough idea why, but I get way more communication and feedback on stuff on fb than I do from twits or blog posts. My working theory is that the 300-odd people who actually care are all on fb anyways, and have a reason to go there. Maybe 1/3 of them use RSS feed readers, so checking a blog for the other 2/3 is a high-effort choice. And Twitter is also less universal than Facebook, so QED.

[anonymous]

The curse of habit and the how the mind clings desperately to the things it knows and is comfortable with!
A medium is just that; a famous Canadian may have confused it with the message, but that doesn't mean you have to. As long as you remain the master of your communication, you can use each medium to its fullest potential. Shoot out thoughts and updates on twitter, develop more interesting ideas in paragraph form here. What's not to love?