Not sure if it was @Oprah joining, #amazonfail, #pman (Moldova), or the tipping point on a meme, but the world is atwitter about Twitter.
I thought I’d share a few thoughts about how I use and perceive the service, which I joined about a year ago.
I’m not a Twitter evangelist; I don’t think it’s for everyone. If you’re using it and you don’t know why, maybe you shouldn’t be using it?
Twitter is not a platform, it’s an application that allows you to construct and dip in and out of conversations. You should @ often.
Anyone analyzing tweets only as stand alone statements will see self-absorption and “innate incoherence.” They miss the point.
Yet it’s easy to be misled by how Twitter works, because most answers to the question “What are you doing?” aren’t interesting.
But that’s not how the people I follow or I use it. Most of the people I follow instead answer the question “what are you thinking?”
If you follow interesting people who think interesting things, then it follows to think that their tweets might be interesting.
Over time your mind’s eye will learn to identify tweeters who have something relevant to say and to find yet others. Read critically.
The people I follow on Twitter aren’t necessarily my “friends.” Some people are comfortable with 100% virtual friendships. I’m not.
(I’m not raining on online friendships, I’m just saying they’re not for me).
The people who aren’t my friends whom I follow on Twitter I consider “acquaintances.” I think that’s a fairer name for what we share.
I’m willing to bore friends, but I try not to bore acquaintances, because some day, I might want them to be my friends.
I don’t — or try not to — complain about traffic or the academic #jobmarket, because, really, who’s interested in my bitching?
I bitch about traffic and the #jobmarket to my friends, and rarely think twice about confronting them when we’re hanging out.
I always think twice about confronting someone on Twitter. It’s not polite to disagree with acquaintances, though sometimes it must be done.
Mostly, though, I avoid confronting others because arguments in Twitter are unsatisfying. Neither party gets sufficiently into it.
So when I disagree with a tweet, I resolve the disagreement by reading and thinking more, writing a blog post, or talking with friends.
As a result, my tweetline offers a path into my life, reading, and thinking that’s perhaps a tad more upbeat than the real thing.
Ultimately, Twitter works for me because through it I am exposed to people that push and prod me to think and read more deeply and broadly.
I follow links from educators & historians & journalists & technologists whose judgments I respect. I learn. Hopefully, I also contribute.
“Blog to reflect, tweet to connect.” @bgblogging Claim anything more for Twitter, you’re either selling something or setting up a straw man.
As such, Twitter is not for people who have uttered the following statements:
“Twitter won’t work because it’s not profitable.” “Twitter can’t save journalism.” “Twitter encourages our worst impulses.”
Those statements are usually uttered by people with closed worldviews, with minds already made up.
Twitter, like everything else, is purposeful only if you use it with a purpose.
Luke, I hear you when you say, “I’m not a Twitter evangelist; I don’t think it’s for everyone,” so I guess it’s not fair to respond to your post as if you meant it for those of us who are not on Twitter yet. But I wish you (or someone) would write something with enough Twitter evangelism to be clearly intended to engage the non-user. When you say, “If you’re using it and you don’t know why, maybe you shouldn’t be using it?” I think you unwittingly convey an early adopters’ elitism, as if you don’t want the rest of us to get on board. A little proselytizing and explanation would be great! Why not post something about 1) here’s how it works, and 2) here’s what it can do for you… instead of just 3) here’s how it doesn’t work and what it can’t do for you [maybe just links to columns by David Pogue and others about this]. I don’t have a closed worldview, so I’m ready to hear you! Here’s an opening question for outsiders: I don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry, just an old-fashioned cellphone. Can Twitter work for me, or should I wait till I can afford an iPhone?
I admit, I hate Twitter. What happened to just having real conversations?
Agnieska, can you explain Twitter to Wendy?
Just kidding.
@Wendy: here’s a couple of links that are more generous towards beginners than was my post. I spend much time evangelizing Blogs@Baruch, and wanted to try something else here.
As for your comment about early adopter elitism, that’s a fair point. I’d say first that Twitter was around for almost two years when I joined, so I was myself a bit late to the game. Also, the phrase you quoted was written as a question; I think too many people jump on a technology because they think that they should be using it rather than for a particular reason, even if that reason is open ended exploration (which is how I started… a few months later, I ramped up my usage when I saw its professional and personal utility more clearly). I didn’t mean to come across as a scold or a snob.
And, many users don’t use mobile devices… some use the web platform, others use utilities you can install on the hard drive of your computer.
Luke
The length of your post re: a service limited to posts of 140 characters is hilarious. Seriously though, great post.
I credit David Pogue with starting the 2009 Twitter mania. His article here gives a very good lowdown:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/twittering-tips-for-beginners/
Twitter is like a buffet where you pick and choose the parts that work for you. I use it mostly for technology tidbits, notifications of sales, wit and humor, and not in that order.
But I also don’t watch the dang thing all day. I use nutshellmail (.com) to send me an email twice a day with all the tweets in a digest format and I scan through the list for good stuff. I may be a student without a full time job, (but full time computer geek), but hello, even I find Twitter to be distracting to the point of utter and thorough nevergetathingdone.
Last note – “tweetdeck” is a program where you can organize twitter feeds into categories so you sift through groups of people more easily.
From “Let Them Eat Tweets”, V. Heffernan’s piece in this weekend’s NYT Magazine (which, by the way, links also to bavatuesdays.com):
“Twitter — the microblogging service that lets you post and read fragmentary communications at high speed — is fun, but it’s embarrassing. You subscribe to the yawps of a bunch of people; they subscribe to your yawps; and you produce and consume yawps for the rest of your days. The me-me-me clamor brings to mind Emily Dickinson’s poem about the disgrace of fame, “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”: “How public — like a Frog — / To tell one’s name — the livelong June — / To an admiring Bog!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
I was glad to read this. My own experience Twittering has been intermittent and, well, not very successful.
I opened my first twitter account some time in 2007. I don’t know when Twitter closed it for lack of use, but I opened a new one maybe a month ago. This neglected account too will probably soon be closed.
I want my tweets to be different than my Facebook status updates. However, I feel that the status update — although I know it is a Twitter rip off — pretty much fulfills my need to broadcast random thoughts into cyberspace.
I thought when I read your post here on April 20th that it might be instructive for me on how to better use Twitter, but alas, some three weeks later that has not been the result.
@Michael: I’m curious why you feel your tweeting wasn’t successful, and why you re-opened an account that you had previously neglected? If your need is to “broadcast random thoughts into cyberspace,” then wouldn’t an email to no one in particular do that specific trick? It seems that you feel that you should be getting something from having an account on Twitter that you’re not, but that you don’t know what this is.
I use Facebook and Twitter differently because I have different networks on each service… there’s some overlap in what and how I post and who I know,… maybe 10-15%… but my understanding of the networks informs how I use each. Maybe you haven’t found or created a network that works for you on Twitter? Could it be that Twitter isn’t for thee?