My wife didn't want me to write about Twitter. In her mind she thinks it's pointless and a little "scary" how people want to use these applications in hopes of connecting and communicating. I'm not sure if I disagree with her, but I want to get this out just because Twitter seems to be growing.You say Twitter to someone and one of two things happen. Either they get really excited and want to talk about it or their eyes glaze over and the force-field of "new technology fear" is raised. Like most things new on the web, there is this overwhelming feeling of concern and excitement as the latest "gadget" comes out vowing to make our (Internet) life more fun.
I won't try to explain Twitter. I've learned over the years that explaining new technologies that have never had application before are very challenging to understand. My parents swore up and down that Tivo was completely unnecessary when they had two VCRs and they never missed anything they wanted to watch. My brother and I bought them a Tivo anyway. They kicked and screamed for about the length of time it took to download the program schedule to the Tivo. Today you couldn't convince them to ever get rid of it. Other examples of these "hard-to-explain-to-your-parents" technologies are the iPhone, RSS, Blogs, etc. Once you find a use for them, you wonder how you could have ever lived without them.If you want the best "explainer" I have found for Twitter watch this very short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o (youtube version)
Does anyone care what I do from email to email or from post to post? I have never had anyone email me and say "What are you doing RIGHT NOW?" or "Why haven't you blogged lately?" My friends and family understand that I contact them when something is going on...not when I've just switched brands of toothpaste or found the cleanest public bathroom in Portland or mowed the lawn in circle patterns. What I'm getting at is that the details between email or phone calls are important to store and talk about later.
I would argue that by not keeping a little information about yourself stored up and told later, you are destroying the romantic aspect of your life. When we store up a bunch of mildly important events and later tell them to someone else, we have the opportunity to embellish the story to make it more interesting...even if we stretch the facts a bit. This is what life is about. If you knew every aspect of my life before I had the opportunity to tell you personally, I would be an incredibly boring person.Believe it or not, I do think Twitter is EXTREMELY useful...but probably not for me. If I were a teacher, I could use Twitter to inform my students that the geography assignment will be due in 2 weeks instead of on Friday. If I were a sales manager I could let sales people know that the new sales presentations have a typo on them and not to use them. And so on. If you have information that "impacts" others I think you should seriously consider Twitter.
As for me, I wish I could find uses for Twitter in my life...but alas I can't. My Twitter page at the time of this post says it all:- My first cell Tweet - about 7 hours ago from txt
- Actively experimenting with twitter - 10:11 AM Apr 22nd from web
- Learning about twitter - 8:47 PM Dec 18th, 2008 from web
