Reading an interesting post about Twitter this morning (H/T: Col), I was reminded of a piece I wrote in defence of the service back in May. I’ve re-published it below, and my high opinion of Twitter’s potential as a tool still stands. However, a mere three months later I think I would’ve written the post differently due changes I’ve observed since in the way that I and others use Twitter. Have a read and let me know how you agree or disagree, and also let me know what you think about how our use of tools such as Twitter is dynamic.
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I was at the pub with some mates recently when one of them — a non-Twitter user — asked, “So what exactly is Twitter?” Another friend — a devoted Twitter user — went to answer immediately, stopped, struggled to organise his thoughts, stumbled over some clumsy words, before managing the following explanation: “Twitter is like sending emails out into the internet.”
Many people are genuinely intrigued and confused by Twitter, and continue to be intrigued and confused when they fail to extract a suitable explanation for its appeal from devoted users. What is it about such a seemingly simple tool that has so many people hooked? Is a 140 character brain fart into the ether the pinnacle of 30 years of internet development?
The mainstream media, in its inimitable way, has perfected the mindless (in many senses) representation of all online social media. Newspapers breathlessly report anything that happens on Facebook (probably because their journalists spend most of their time on it) as if it were news, at the same time having a crack at users of social media tools for bringing disgrace to the art of communication. Twitter has, by-and-large, befuddled journalists because it requires a bit of effort to explain, and it certainly can’t be summed up in one or two pithy lines.
The Age’s Tony Wright says Twitter begins and ends with a “sad question: ‘What are you doing now?’” The resulting interaction is “banal communication almost beneath description”. Wright reckons that the “social networking” label slapped on Twitter, Facebook etc. is heresy because social networking can only happen around a restaurant table or over a coffee. The SMH’s Richard Glover can’t understand why anyone would sign up to read others’ tweets: “It’s like living with a three-year-old who wants to inform you every time she does a poo.”
Thing is, if Twitter was in reality the simplistic and pointless service as painted by Wright, Glover and co. they might actually have a point. Unfortunately for them there is so much more to Twitter than is obvious from a cursory, outside glance. You’ve got to jump in and get your keyboard dirty to really understand the power of Twitter.
Like all Web 2.0 social networking tools that force us to redefine the way we interact, Twitter is difficult to summarise and explain with precision. And the very nature of Web 2.0 requires us to study the way that people use tools, rather than the basic functionality of those tools, to determine their worth. It’s disingenuous to equate the quality of the message with the characters it takes to communicate. Everything must be viewed in the context of the greater interaction taking place.
At its core, Twitter is a way for users to fire a 140 character message out into the intertubes, but it is wrong to think of Twitter as nothing more than simplistic and unidirectional communication. The vast majority of “tweets” sent by regular users are replies to others’ tweets, similar to a reply sent by email. Through this constant and time-efficient interaction users build thoughts, threads, ideas and shared understandings 140 characters at a time. Users share in other users’ thinking, meet new users, and challenge each other to explain their thinking. They swap links, make jokes, ask for feedback, give feedback. The Twittersphere is a dynamic network of interacting users, like an infinitely overlapping Venn diagram.
Of course, there are users who do use Twitter as nothing more than a way to notify friends that they’ve eaten a bowl of cornflakes or watched CSI: Miami, but this has got nothing to do with Twitter itself; mundane communication is not unique to any mode or format.
Besides from letting people talk to each other, Twitter has, in its relatively short lifespan, served many uses that were unlikely to have been envisioned by its creators. Communities of Twitterers all discussing the same event have participated in a type of shared reporting, breaking firsthand news from the frontline of world events, tweeted on-the-spot by eyewitnesses using mobile phones. Twitter has provided a forum for people from across the globe to analyse and comment on live events in real time, a recent example being the Logies broadcast. Twitter let thousands of Australians from all corners of the nation discuss the event as if they were in the same lounge room. Hardly the mundane and brainless sort of thing dismissed by Twitter’s detractors.
Could it be that journalists wedded to their unique brand of interaction-free writing are nervous about this new world of omni-directional communication? It’s easy to knock something you don’t understand. It’s a bit like The Age film writer Jim Schembri who mercilessly slagged off bloggers as vacuous and meaningless a mere twelve months before starting his own blog (no doubt at the insistence of his employer.) Despite sarcastically signing off each of his posts with the line “your valued thoughts are hereby sought,” Schembri now reads his readers’ comments and responds to them; interacts with them. Perhaps blogging isn’t quite as bad as he thought after all?
But in the end, who really cares if Richard Glover and Tony Wright don’t get it? Who cares if their focus on the lowest-common-denominator use of Twitter ignores the amazing and exciting potential of the service if used creatively? They can take their telephone calls and boozy lunches and leave the 21st century to the rest of us. At least we know how to use it.
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three months later I think I would’ve written the post differently due changes I’ve observed since in the way that I and others use Twitter
What changes, Scott? As a non-Twitter user it seems to me that the use of Twitter has devolved rather than evolved. And I think there’s no doubt that many people are using it as their ‘tool of choice’ in lieu of commenting @ blogs, which is rather sad.
I think Twitter goes hand-in-hand with blogging. If you want to stay relevant you have to move with the times. I think people are confused and turned off by Twitter at first but once you can have fun with it, it becomes quite addictive.
If you don’t use Twitter, Ray, then how can you make the call that it has devolved?
I disagree, Ray. I don’t think blogs and Twitter compete, rather they offer two different, and possibly complimentary, ways to communicate. I think the effect that Twitter may have had on blogs is that it’s created a new network which doesn’t quite match the existing blog network, but isn’t completely different — think of a Venn diagram where the circles almost, but not quite overlap.
As I said in my original piece, I think it all comes down to how each individual chooses to use Twitter, and for that matter it how each individual chooses to use blogs. For me, Twitter and blogs compliment each other.
It should also be noted that a lot of people are also still skeptical about blogging and trying to explain what blogging is to people can be met with disdain.
Also, I think the term ‘blog’ is a shithouse one.
Why, Cam?
Cambo, I said it SEEMS to me it has devolved. It’s not a “call” it’s an observation from my perspective as a non-Twitter user.
Genuinely curious, Ray: why does it seem to have devolved?
Just the tone and direction (or lack of) of the tweets, Scott, and the lack of any real topic and thread of conversation.
Again, I’m making these observations as someone who doesn’t use it but in one ‘debate’ I had over this elsewhere I said, Twitter is like going into a room full of 500 drunks at a party where everyone is making idle chit-chat, only everyone keeps jumping from one little group to the other and it all becomes totally incoherent. There’s nothing wrong with idle chit-chat and parties (that’s what they’re about) but where’s the booze?
In another debate, someone (Wah I think) said it was a “handy vehicle”. I said, A Commodore is a vehicle too but it’s for driving from A to B, not for doing donuts & burnouts.
I don’t deny that a lot of what happens on Twitter is inane chatter, but I’ve experienced some very handy exchanges of ideas and opinions on Twitter.
I’ve experienced some handy exchanges of ideas & opinions down at the local supermarket but I really only want to go there for shopping.
Anyway, I like the Commodore analogy. I could have added, “Twitterers are the hoons of the Internet”, but it’s not my call.
Fair enough. Nothing is going to appeal to everybody.
Well I think conversation appeals to nearly everybody and the Internet has been a great way of expanding the amount of interaction we have with others.
I just don’t “get” Twitter because of the reasons I’ve said above, however, it doesn’t bother me if others think it’s the bee’s knees and I wouldn’t even think twice about it except, as I said, I do believe it has impacted on blogging.
You might be able to combine the two but I could give you countless examples of others who have almost dropped off the blogging radar since they got into Twitter.
I think twitter requires a certain level of evolution of the individual. An ability to link in with a number of people in a real-time basis, while also having enough to offer as a person and as a lived life. You need to be doing stuff that is interesting, and able to communicate that in an interesting way. Which means new. So you have to be both a developed person and doing new things.
On that basis, I plan to begin twittering when my business is launched. I’ll be networking around town, and interstate, but at the same time implementing new website functionality as people require it. So I’ll have the confidence/happiness to twitter in the right way, and also have something to twitter about.
At least that’s the theory…
I think a lot of my friends were turned off twitter because they expected it to be a ’social networking’ site, which I think is an entirely inaccurate description of it.
They expect to just connect with people. Which it clearly not what Twitter is about.
I do love Twitter. I think it is a way of connecting live to the collective stream of human consciousness. Twitter lives and breaths. It makes the world so much smaller.
That said, there is a lot of inane chatter. But you take the good with the bad I guess.
I like that. A lot.
Thanks, Scott.
I liked it too.
The hours I have spent starting at my Twistori screensaver is testament to that though.
How topics trend is also a really interesting process. It’s an amazing feedback loop.
I learned about Michael Jackson’s death though checking Twitter in the morning. Tunnel Cow!
And watching Eurovision with twitter was like having thousands of drunk smart-arses in the room with you.
Scott: “I don’t think blogs and Twitter compete, rather they offer two different, and possibly complimentary, ways to communicate.”
I agree. The ability of the author to notify of a blog update via tweets is one small example of it’s benefits. Not only is it a handy nudge to interested (and potentially interested) parties but an informative suggestion with a human touch compared to that of perfunctory RSS jolts.
I just don’t like the word, Scott. I also don’t like ‘Haberdashery’ and ‘Myriad’.