Talk a little, Twitter more?
Hooked on instant updates, Web site trend is catching on
Emily Thiessen
Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: Opinion
For the poke warriors losing their battles or the minnows going belly-up in a news feed frenzy, there's a new bird in town.
It goes by the name of Twitter.
The next step in social networking, Twitter is a simple little idea with potentially huge effects. Via the Internet, mobile web, oar text messaging, users can employ up to 140 characters to answer one question: What are you doing? Think of it as a mini-blog, or a Facebook status with slightly more space but only one function.
I've always hopped on this kind of bandwagon. I remember gleefully getting an email address at a tender age. I grew older and there was AOL Instant Messenger, which took up many nights of my middle school career; around the same time, I began an immature yet earnest blog. In high school, I convinced my parents to add text messaging to our cell phone plan so I could keep in touch with classmates. Finally, following that was the increasingly omnipresent Facebook. Twitter emerges as a voracious combination of all of these.
A few weeks ago, I joined the ranks of fellow 'Twitterers,' or 'tweeters,' or something along those lines - there seem to be a few bird-like references that keep the concept consistent, but I still haven't caught onto them fully.
I'm very intrigued, I'm slightly confused, and I'm definitely hooked.
Twitter allows its users to send out their snappy, witty thoughts into the world; unfortunately, it also gives an outlet to those users that are a little less creative and a lot more mundane. For every clever Twitter user, it seems that there are dozens who merely want to tell the world what they're eating for breakfast. Frankly, I don't get the point in that, yet I still addictively read almost every post, regardless of its lucidity or significance.
Hope you're enjoying that bowl of Cheerios.
There are several other perks and annoyances. A feature called "@replies" enables more direct (but still public) conversation between users. This is alternately amusing and irritating, depending on the topic, the users, and how long their discussion ensues. Additionally, users can choose to receive mobile text messages whenever someone updates. I thought this was a brilliant feature until my cell phone repeatedly woke me up in the middle of the night. Now, I only have a select few friends for whom I enable this feature - ironically enough, those who I wouldn't mind getting normal text messages from.
It goes by the name of Twitter.
The next step in social networking, Twitter is a simple little idea with potentially huge effects. Via the Internet, mobile web, oar text messaging, users can employ up to 140 characters to answer one question: What are you doing? Think of it as a mini-blog, or a Facebook status with slightly more space but only one function.
I've always hopped on this kind of bandwagon. I remember gleefully getting an email address at a tender age. I grew older and there was AOL Instant Messenger, which took up many nights of my middle school career; around the same time, I began an immature yet earnest blog. In high school, I convinced my parents to add text messaging to our cell phone plan so I could keep in touch with classmates. Finally, following that was the increasingly omnipresent Facebook. Twitter emerges as a voracious combination of all of these.
A few weeks ago, I joined the ranks of fellow 'Twitterers,' or 'tweeters,' or something along those lines - there seem to be a few bird-like references that keep the concept consistent, but I still haven't caught onto them fully.
I'm very intrigued, I'm slightly confused, and I'm definitely hooked.
Twitter allows its users to send out their snappy, witty thoughts into the world; unfortunately, it also gives an outlet to those users that are a little less creative and a lot more mundane. For every clever Twitter user, it seems that there are dozens who merely want to tell the world what they're eating for breakfast. Frankly, I don't get the point in that, yet I still addictively read almost every post, regardless of its lucidity or significance.
Hope you're enjoying that bowl of Cheerios.
There are several other perks and annoyances. A feature called "@replies" enables more direct (but still public) conversation between users. This is alternately amusing and irritating, depending on the topic, the users, and how long their discussion ensues. Additionally, users can choose to receive mobile text messages whenever someone updates. I thought this was a brilliant feature until my cell phone repeatedly woke me up in the middle of the night. Now, I only have a select few friends for whom I enable this feature - ironically enough, those who I wouldn't mind getting normal text messages from.
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