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I just don't get Twitter. I expect we'll see more and more semi-useless technologies like these in the future as companies grasp for a raison d'etre.
Age? Are you Gen-X or earlier?
Twitter is similar to IM what email was to regular letters. Back when email first came out, I'm sure alot of people said "I just don't get email. You have to get all this fancy machinery (a computer) involved, just to send a letter!" Twitter is sortof like an asynchronous IM system.
Twitter is in fact a unique service, and that's why it has had quite the following. I'm sure that some people think it's goofy, but it does have a good use. It works well at communicating (in real time) updates on events to anyone that wants to view the page (kind of like a web page), but it can be updated from a cell phone. Think about how people "tweet" during disasters, school shootings, etc. This kind of instant dissemination of information can literally be a life saver at times.
And it also has a "celebrity appeal" in that celebrities can post updates, etc and their followers/stalkers can see and comment on what they are doing. This is all done in a very tight format, with not too much hullabaloo, it's straight to the point and has literally, only one function... "What are you doing right now?"
Every interest bearing loan is mathematically impossible to pay back.
Twitter is simply a logical extension to communications - but as with all such extensions, is primarily adopted by the young.
A great extension to this trend is the Brainpal in John Scalzi's novels: an implant with wireless communications capability allowing instant sending of thoughts and emotions.
In "Ghost Brigades", an entire force of soldiers is created with the Brainpal as a primary communications device (vs. the regular soldiers who lived 75 years without one first) - the ability of each group to understand the other is severely challenged due to inherently different mindsets.
For Twitter - I personally have ZERO interest in hearing/seeing unfiltered info. GHU if I have to pay attention to all the meandering crap which doesn't even have a rudimentary review process.
But I fully realize that those people older than I feel the same way about me :eek:
Certainly the kids and computerati have much lower social inhibitions at least online.
Thank goodness we have a nice depression coming to hopefully snap back some good old fashioned reserve.
More to the point: will twitter ever be profitable? Except during a potential meet-up, I just don't give a shit about what my friends are doing minute to minute let alone total strangers or celebrities. It could be useful for breaking news...but nothing a webpage refresh couldn't accomplish.
I can see how readers could flock to twitter, but I don't get why writers would.
There are a lot of nosy people out there, so following celebs would be huge, and it promotes the celeb further so win:win there.
Also, people perhaps promoting a self-employed business could benefit. A potential customer would get to know the writer much better and perhaps trust that person to do a job for them.
Otherwise, I don't get why anyone would write on twitter. I wouldn't want anyone to know where I was or what I was doing. Maybe that is just me.
Maybe it would appeal to those who would write a diary, but then it is a public diary... so maybe not. Or maybe someone who wants to be famous or get a community connected feeling. I'm not sure... the egocentric (that would be the young) or the lonely. I dunno.
Apart from nosy people, I could imagine another type of reader... the freelance journalist. If I was a freelance journalist for a local paper, I would type in my hometown and see if I could find an event worthwhile enough to write about.
As for main events, it'll be pretty useless as you'd have to know beforehand where the event takes place so you can look it up. Also, a big event would have thousands of messages from people who have read about it in the news, not firsthand.
More to the point: will twitter ever be profitable? Except during a potential meet-up, I just don't give a shit about what my friends are doing minute to minute let alone total strangers or celebrities. It could be useful for breaking news...but nothing a webpage refresh couldn't accomplish.
That's the way I see it. People are so narcissistic they think everyone else wants to know what they are doing all the time. Not saying it has no use whatsoever, only that this kind of "technology" is cute but serves little real productive purpose. To compare tweets to email is a stretch. Groundbreaking technology to me is Email, cell phones, and the like. This is a novelty act in comparison. Soon all the unemployed can sit around tweeting each other, explaining how they did nothing all day and watched Oprah reruns. Zzzzz
PS. My seven year old wants a cell phone so she can text her friends. Explain that to me.
That's the way I see it. People are so narcissistic they think everyone else wants to know what they are doing all the time. Not saying it has no use whatsoever, only that this kind of "technology" is cute but serves little real productive purpose. To compare tweets to email is a stretch. Groundbreaking technology to me is Email, cell phones, and the like. This is a novelty act in comparison. Soon all the unemployed can sit around tweeting each other, explaining how they did nothing all day and watched Oprah reruns. Zzzzz
PS. My seven year old wants a cell phone so she can text her friends. Explain that to me.
I think one of the reasons so many are using all this technology (cell phones, Twitter, Ipods) is people can no longer bear to be alone with their thoughts.
I think one of the reasons so many are using all this technology (cell phones, Twitter, Ipods) is people can no longer bear to be alone with their thoughts.
Twitter is in fact a unique service, and that's why it has had quite the following. I'm sure that some people think it's goofy, but it does have a good use. It works well at communicating (in real time) updates on events to anyone that wants to view the page (kind of like a web page), but it can be updated from a cell phone. Think about how people "tweet" during disasters, school shootings, etc. This kind of instant dissemination of information can literally be a life saver at times.
By CHRISTIAN BOONE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Could tweeting be the answer to Atlanta’s seemingly overwhelmed 911 center?
Mayoral candidate Kwanzaa Hall said it’s worth exploring. On Friday he used the social-media tool Twitter to obtain assistance for a woman who suffered a seizure at the intersection of John Wesley Dobbs Avenue and Jackson Street.
“I was on my way home and saw her just lying on the corner,” the District 2 Atlanta city councilman said. A few passersby had stopped to offer aid, but Hall said they were having trouble getting through to the city’s 911 Center, a problem that has been the focus of recent articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Just last weekend a southwest Atlanta house was gutted by fire after callers to 911 were placed on hold for at least seven minutes.
Hall said his cell phone was nearly out of power and he feared losing the call while on hold. So he “tweeted” instead, hoping one of his 1,849 followers (or contacts) on Twitter would reach 911.
“Need a paramedic on corner of John Wesley Dobbs and Jackson st. Woman on the ground unconscious. Pls ReTweet,” he wrote at 6:48 p.m.
Hall said an ambulance arrived and transported the unidentified woman to Grady Memorial Hospital. Hall said the paramedics told him the woman suffered a seizure. There’s no word on her status.
Hall said Sunday night he planned to register @911Atl on Twitter, though the city’s emergency operators won’t be responding to “tweets” anytime soon. A phone call remains the only way to directly contact 911 in Atlanta. “Let’s see how we can embrace this new technology and maybe save some lives,” Hall said.
Communications behemoth AT&T relied on Twitter to update its customers in the San Francisco Bay area after a fiber cut last month left thousands of people without broadband, phone and wireless service for most of the day.
Every interest bearing loan is mathematically impossible to pay back.
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