I ask this question because when I turn on the TV to watch network news or something not recorded by my Tivo. I see twitter this and twitter that and I am generally just completely confused as to what the purpose of it is?! From what I can tell it’s a service that allows you to simply post 160 characters of whatever thoughts you maybe having at any given moment. Some of the differences I can readily understand for example. The fact that one can send a message to everyone following them without having to pay 0.10 cents US or .15 cents US or whatever it is for the privilege. Other than that though I don’t readily see how it would benefit me.
Even marketing wise reaching a small audience lets say a small group of 20k-30k people twitter doesn’t seem like the best way to keep everyone up to date on the on-goings of whatever it is you are working on. Primarily because of the 160 character limitation but also because others have to be readily following and tracking your “tweets”. It’s there and then it’s gone.. From what I have read that is supposed to be a good thing?
The only other useful thing I can think of is tracking the “tweets” for data of ongoing topics people are thinking or tweeting about. That’s great but that’s nothing of value to me really. Not that it couldn’t be a useful service if someone setup something like Daylife for Twitter but the information is only 160 characters and by the time someone like me views it some reporter/news organization will have a overall useful summary for me. That or I will heard by word-of-mouth. Which I would have to believe is nature’s version of twitter.
When Facebook hit it was great for me because instead of everyone calling and me not having enough time to talk to everyone (then people think you’re ignoring them). Or people thinking I fell off the face off the Earth when I just happened to be in another country, state, whatever; it allows me to stay in contact with people I care to follow/track and generally people can see what I maybe doing. Family and friends can keep up with my general on-goings and I can keep up with them. Keeps my public number up there, birthday information, my relatives, friends, I even recently came across some old elementary school friends. Great for keeping in contact and all that, it’s useful to me in that respect. It’s like the addressbook of my life. The online chat thing is a little bit difficult to deal with because everyone wants to talk at the same time but not different than my regular im account and otherwise clearly useful.
I hate to be that guy. You know the one who just doesn’t understand the purpose of a technology. You know the guy.. Yeah, that one. The one who thinks cell phones are pointless and i’d like to think I am generally tech-savvy. So work with me on this… What is the purpose of Twitter? An example or two on how I could use it to improve my life, my work, myself, or help anyone else. I have a twitter account and surprisingly I actually have followers, they’ve been looking at the same status message for the last 5 months ( I just changed it to “Trying to understand the purpose of twitter”)
Christopher Warner is part genius, part idiot. This makes him well balanced. He's worked on numerous opensource projects with great people and has generally led an eventful and fulfilling life. He hopes to retire an old man in a rocking chair should he be so fortunate.
What is the purpose of twitter?
I ask this question because when I turn on the TV to watch network news or something not recorded by my Tivo. I see twitter this and twitter that and I am generally just completely confused as to what the purpose of it is?! From what I can tell it’s a service that allows you to simply post 160 characters of whatever thoughts you maybe having at any given moment. Some of the differences I can readily understand for example. The fact that one can send a message to everyone following them without having to pay 0.10 cents US or .15 cents US or whatever it is for the privilege. Other than that though I don’t readily see how it would benefit me.
Even marketing wise reaching a small audience lets say a small group of 20k-30k people twitter doesn’t seem like the best way to keep everyone up to date on the on-goings of whatever it is you are working on. Primarily because of the 160 character limitation but also because others have to be readily following and tracking your “tweets”. It’s there and then it’s gone.. From what I have read that is supposed to be a good thing?
The only other useful thing I can think of is tracking the “tweets” for data of ongoing topics people are thinking or tweeting about. That’s great but that’s nothing of value to me really. Not that it couldn’t be a useful service if someone setup something like Daylife for Twitter but the information is only 160 characters and by the time someone like me views it some reporter/news organization will have a overall useful summary for me. That or I will heard by word-of-mouth. Which I would have to believe is nature’s version of twitter.
When Facebook hit it was great for me because instead of everyone calling and me not having enough time to talk to everyone (then people think you’re ignoring them). Or people thinking I fell off the face off the Earth when I just happened to be in another country, state, whatever; it allows me to stay in contact with people I care to follow/track and generally people can see what I maybe doing. Family and friends can keep up with my general on-goings and I can keep up with them. Keeps my public number up there, birthday information, my relatives, friends, I even recently came across some old elementary school friends. Great for keeping in contact and all that, it’s useful to me in that respect. It’s like the addressbook of my life. The online chat thing is a little bit difficult to deal with because everyone wants to talk at the same time but not different than my regular im account and otherwise clearly useful.
I hate to be that guy. You know the one who just doesn’t understand the purpose of a technology. You know the guy.. Yeah, that one. The one who thinks cell phones are pointless and i’d like to think I am generally tech-savvy. So work with me on this… What is the purpose of Twitter? An example or two on how I could use it to improve my life, my work, myself, or help anyone else. I have a twitter account and surprisingly I actually have followers, they’ve been looking at the same status message for the last 5 months ( I just changed it to “Trying to understand the purpose of twitter”)
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About Christopher Warner
Christopher Warner is part genius, part idiot. This makes him well balanced. He's worked on numerous opensource projects with great people and has generally led an eventful and fulfilling life. He hopes to retire an old man in a rocking chair should he be so fortunate.