Tweetology

A while back, I addressed the Twitter phenomenon. At that point, I had just gotten it so I wasn't exactly sure how it worked and what its significance was in a larger context. I did see the potential but I didn't realize how much potential Twitter really has...which is a lot. So much that it's the cover story in Time Magazine entitled: "How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live".

That's a pretty big deal. For most people Twitter seems like an annoying fad where people can tell other people they may or may not know how their stomachs reacted to last night's burrito. For companies, celebrities, and technologically optimistic folks, Twitter is so much more than that.

Considering one of the founders of this social networking site is Evan Williams who happens to be one of the founders of blogger.com, it's obvious there is some genius behind this phenomenon. Williams, we could say, brought blogging to the public eye transforming it into an extremely important venue & outlet for expression and conversation.

On Twitter, conversation is made easier, quicker, and more compact. By entering certain subjects in your post (i.e. #blogging), you can respond to those who have something to say about certain issues without having to be their friend, follow them, or know them at all. Keeping the character restriction helps us to summarize our points instead of rambling on meaninglessly. How democratic is that? Anyone anywhere (to an extent) can put their two cents into a public forum.

Interestingly, there has been a lot of scholarly criticism regarding the lack of a true public sphere where action and change can happen. I argue that this active public sphere is in fact the Internet. Although we aren't staging a revolution per se, the net can create global communities of people who can fight for a cause and defend their beliefs.

Beyond being a stage for discussion, Twitter is the master of networking. Yes, Facebook keeps you in touch with friends, and lets you "creep" non-friends, but it isn't as strong of a link to companies and organizations. Being able to read a series of headlines and follow links to what you're interested in changes the way we read the news in a good way. We all know that newspapers are a dying breed and you know what, that's okay. Online news means more news and faster news. When something happens, a story can break online where one used to have to wait until the next day for a print paper.

Twitter is exercising its potential well but there are possible scenarios that may devalue this service:

1. Advertising: Once Twitter receives advertising, the site won't be as organic as it is now. People will be distracted and discouraged to tweet and be tweeted at.

2. Applications: although Twitter is slightly extending one's abilities at the moment, their applications (i.e. Twitpic) are more beneficial than unnecessary. I mentioned in my previous Twitter-themed article that there may be a day where one can play TwitterGames. I personally hope this doesn't happen because it will cause the same kind of disturbance that advertising would.

Fingers crossed it won't succumb to that.




Alright, enough rambling.

If you're down with Twitter, follow me: www.twitter.com/romeh