I have spent an inordinate amount of time on Twitter lately. If you thought blogs sucked you into a vortex, just wait until you try Twitter. Follow me on Twitter.
I will attempt to describe Twitter. Many people have done a much better job.
A Twitter post is called a Tweet. Tweets are the same length as a text message you can send on your phone, 140 characters. Tweets can be viewed at Twitter.com, various desktop clients and of course you mobile phone.
How Twittter relates to other online media and their consumption.
Books -> Chapters -> Paragraphs -> Words – big, smaller, smallest.
Newspapers -> Articles – follows the same logic.
Blogs -> Twitter – Blog posts tend to take a lot of effort, you can post virtually anything to Twitter in 15 seconds.
Blogs posts are similar to a never-ending feed of instantaneous newspaper articles. Ignoring the fact that blogs are different from newspapers, which is a whole different discussion.
If you are a newspaper reader, you may think that the frequency of blogs is a bit too much. You appreciate how blogs often beat newspapers to major stories, and have the freedom to explore aspects of a story that MSM (mainstream media) can’t afford to dig into, but you have a life and can only digest so much media every day.
If that’s you, Tweets will drive you insane in about four hours. Twitter is your life, and everyone elses, 140 characters at a time. Typical Tweets can be mundane, like most blog posts, but people are learning how to exploit the medium in ways that truly amaze me.
Twitter is useful for a number of reasons. Developers are building all sorts of interesting services on top of the constant “lifestream” that is Twitter.
I flirt on Twitter, I get into arguments and I learn a lot from people I will probably never meet in my lifetime, all without worrying too much about the backlash. I also get some of the most incredible insights from people that blogs never let on.
I personally don’t care much about what most people have to say on Twitter, but for a handful of people who I admire and respect, Twitter is a unique opportunity to glimpse into people’s personal and professional lives.
Ok, now you know what Twitter is, you can check this out.
Eric Klaassen at http://datingfacts.web-log.nl) wrote:
Have you heard of Twitterdating already? In Europe it is gaining quite some media attention. You might want to check out this post: http://datingfacts.web-log.nl/datingfacts/2008/04/daten-via-twitt.html It is in Dutch, but the movie is in English!
Basically two people have a date on Twitter. I can’t imagine doing that, but hey to be in your 20’s and living on the Internet, makes perfect sense.
What’s next, digital Haiku?
