Twitter: I Really Don’t Know

I’ve been using Twitter a lot recently, for work and for fun. And…

Well, I can’t come to an overall opinion. I just can’t. There’s too much to love and too much to hate.

So here’s both of what I think. (And yes, these are extreme opposites. That’s the point).

What is Twitter?

• It’s a fabulously interconnected, democratically-ranked  bulletin board service (or “micro-blogging” if you want to sound hip) that cuts right across the cultural stratigraphy of the modern world.

• It’s a time-sucking vortex of trivia and narcissism, shallower than the dew in Death Valley.

How does it work?

• Through targeted messages (@<name>) and retweeting (RT @<name><their message>), you disseminate both your own thoughts & finds, and the best of everyone else. It instantly allows you to get a message out to thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of people. You accept a network of Followers, and you Follow them back, and then you can chat away about anything and everything. In 140 words per message. This means every word counts, encouraging tight, succinct writing.

• You add Followers, they add you, and then you never hear from them again except when you see they’re trying to sell you something. When you add them, they send you a message in which they warmly welcome you and hope your mututal Tweeting will be fruitful and fabulous and change your lives forever. You both know this is a lie. It feels like a one-night stand for your brain. Most of the time, you’ll find yourself adding people rather than writing or reading anything – because the great popularity contest that is Twitter is all about Followers. Your number of Followers is your social status, your entire reason to tweet. That’s how this manbecame “King”.

What’s so good about it?

• You can embed URLs in your Tweets and let people know about cool webpages you’ve found, or promote material you’ve written. You can promote things other people have found. You can talk about anything and everything. It’s totally open to everyone – and it’s addictive, because every single second, there are thousands of Tweets from people you Follow, telling you fascinating things. And it’s a great way to get a message out. I quote liberally from Wikipedia:

“The Los Angeles Fire Department put the technology to use during the October 2007 California wildfires.^[53] Some NASA projects such as Space Shuttle missions and the International Space Station provide updates via Twitter. Several 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns used Twitter as a publicity mechanism, including that of Democratic Party nominee and President Barack Obama.^[54] The Nader–Gonzalez campaign updated its ballot access teams in real-time with Twitter and Google Maps.^[55] Twitter use increased 43% on election day.^[56]David Saranga of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that on December 30, 2008, Israel would be the first government to hold a worldwide press conference via Twitter to take questions from the public about the war against Hamas in Gaza.^[57] “

• Beats me. No, actually, the appeal is easy to see. It’s zero-effort self-publishing. You don’t have to put any real effort in, and when you have 10,000 Followers it’s easy to feel like they’re hanging on every word, encouraging you to leave world-axis-tilting messages like “I’m off to work now” and “I’ve just bought some oranges – on special offer!”. Most of the time, though, people use it to try to sell things to you. Mainly web-dev stuff. Mainly Twitter applications that get you more and more Followers. “Get 20,000 Followers in a week – all swimwear models! – for just $99.99″ That kind of thing. And since there’s no way to neatly sort the Tweets hurtling past like sparrows on amphetamines, you miss the 10-20% of messages that are genuinely fun to read.

Should I Use Twitter?

• Yes! Everyone is! It’s the no. 1 social media network for 2009. If you’re not on Twitter, you’re wayyyyy back from the cutting edge. Look at how Twitter jargon is permeating through global culture – if you’ve seen the phrase “fail whale” and wondered WTF, it’s the picture that is displayed when Twitter momentarily blue-screens. Expect to hear newscasters and politicians casually dropping “fail whale” into conversation, such as “With United Nations military input, the Somali pirates will soon realise that their whole operation is going to fail whale” – Ban Ki-moon. I’ve made this up, but you get my point. Fail whale even has a fan club. And that’s just one phrase out of many. Twitter is absolutely the way to get connected and meet new people, and it’s a fun way to pass idle moments in the day. You can even Tweet from your phone!

• No. It’s a phenomenal, gargantuan popularity contest where to be popular, you only have to know the most people. It’s perfect for the MMORPG generation because it’s a kind of endless levelling-up game, it’s perfect for people who want to go online without investing any real time or thought, and it’s perfect for promoting yourself and products where you get a cut. The theory is admirable – that you get to know people and chat to them at length, but in lots of directions, like a huge conference-call – but as it stands now, Twitter is swamped in chaos. It’s broken and impossible to keep up with.

And your thoughts on Twitter are…?