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?
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So what do you make of http://www.twitterpated.com / http://www.twitterdating.com? How would a web app help facilitate what’s already going on on twitter?
There’s nothing at the site except for a signup form.
That’s true, I just wondered if building a web application around what you’re describing here is much of a value add, or how people who are currently using twitter are actually using it to date. Do they set up a real date and then spend their evening in the restaurant tweeting what they ate and what they think of their date? Are they both participating? Are tweets to other people, i.e. @Joe, that aren’t in your contact list, even visible to you?
It’s a novel use of a new tool. I doubt many people would find tweeting about their date or dating over Twitter very interesting. The p0rn people haven’t found Twitter, when they do, expect some interesting new uses and applications.
Oddly enough, my current employer has not banned Twitter from being accessible, but I imagine it is because of it’s relatively newness.
Twitter is clearly the internets largest time-consumer. As if surfing the net on company time wasn’t wasting enough of those good ol’ production dollars, I truly believe Twitter will be “cornered” very soon with that exact reputation across the media vision everywhere.
I mean, look at the model…… So easy to post a quicky, so easy to get caught up in reading everyone’s quickies.
Twitter makes “IM Chatting” look productive!
Date.com is effectively using twitter to pass traffic to their youtube videos
http://www.plentyoftweeps.com – Twitter for your Love Life.
http://twitdates.net – very easy twitter dating website
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