This is embarassing. I’ve gone from someone who dismissed Twitter as “inane” to becoming increasingly taken by its usefulness and potential.
Here’s what I particularly like about Twitter:
1. It’s easy to control the conversation. You decide who you want to follow and how many people you want to follow. If you want un-follow someone, it can be done quickly and quietly with no one the wiser – a nice contrast to Facebook where un-friending someone can be detected, which can be for both parties involved.
2. Twitter is a clean interface with few distractions. It’s easy to write given you’ve only got 140 characters, and it’s a breeze to see what other people are writing without spending much time doing it. As a result, it’s easy to justify regular Twitter Breaks because they can be done so quickly.
3. Twitter is a great way to discover the news, interesting blog posts, cool videos, etc. My favorite people to follow are those who regularly provide useful and interesting links as opposed to the Twitter-ati who talk about what they’re having for lunch or visiting the dentist. Once you fall into the latter category, you’re in un-follow territory.
4. Most important is that the Twitter ecosystem has huge potential to move into new and interesting areas. One example is TwitPic where you can share your photos on Twitter.
While Twitter continues to gain momentum, it is interesting to see Hugh MacLeod already climb off the bandwagon: “It’s no big deal. I liked Twitter. But I found it too easy. I think my time would be better spent drawing cartoons and writing books.” You have to respect MacLeod’s choice but it’s not a big deal given it’s totally normal to try new things before deciding they don’t work for you. It’s not like “I’m giving up Facebook” posts got a lot of attention.
For other views, check out Ted Rheingold, who suggest that Twitter is to Blogging what telegrams were to airmail, Changing Way ponders whether to get on the bandwagon, while Deep Jive Interests offers some detailed thoughts. If you want to read someone who gets and embraces Twitter, check out Corvida, who’s wrting some great stuff.
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2 Comments
Great points, Mark.
I can see where Hugh gets frustrated, especially with the signal v. noise issue. I use TwitterFox so I constantly have a stream of tweets coming in about current happenings, interests, etc. Sometimes it gets overwhelming when you receive tweets non-stop from certain people, Robert Scoble is a good example when considering the A-List Tweeters. I wish there was a way to cancel out the messages or subdue them somehow.
Dave: The thing about Twitter is you can easily control the noise by cutting off people who are too noisy, or deciding to follow just a few people. I’m judicious about who I decide to follow, and, so far, it has made Twitter work for me.
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