Stalking Twitter's own staff

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

Twitter is apparently going to change the way we live. Some think that we are all citizen-journalists now. Clark Kent, eat your heart out.

This bold prediction is based on early adopters who Twitter or Twitpic constantly. As the media coverage showed, the Barack Obama inauguration was a sea of mobile camera phones recording the event in low resolution but from multiple angles. That makes for some interesting 3D synthesis projects. But it misses the point that this man was swearing an oath on the Bible in front of his community, who seemed more keen on documenting that they personally happened to be there. A better illustration of individualisation of leisure destroying democracy would be hard to find. Lucky that Obama is an optimist about social media among other things.

I use Twitter too. My Twitter account seems to form part of a continuum with LinkedIn and Facebook. A bon mot on Twitter may become an essai in my blog and then a beau geste in an event. It's a place I put my blog postings, and where I am happy to accept that someone can track them, because there is little ripple through to all my other contacts. I love Twitter, because it answers that classic question from the Commitments - who are your influences? Precisely because little is given away on Twitter, it is widely used. But I see way more activity from the technology evangelists I stalk on Twitter. Probably 10 to 20 posts a day. And I am probably checking about as often. Perhaps Twitter DID change how we live?

Twitter is mostly about following, with relatively few citizen-journalists actually publishing. It is a way of narrow-casting status updates to a consenting audience, a simplifed version of LinkedIn and Facebook without the implied moral commitment that everyone you stalk is your "friend". Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey find a ready audience there (despite others including Kanye West, Trent Reznor, and Stephanie Meyers withdrawing). Perhaps this is just down to "newbies" like me trialling the service but being relatively inactive. Actually, this lack of creativity is generally true of us all today. There are 31 million moms on the internet in the US interacting through MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, but only 4,000 mom bloggers. How many of us recognized the tracks on School of Rock but never played a musical instrument - and how many of our great grandparents could make music before radio? Experienced users find they can discover someone's interests through Twitter- perhaps not such a new thing, some who discovered Voltaire through his bon mots led the American and French Revolutions.

Twitter's own staff seem not to be too interested in tracking what any of us write there, according to research by Marshall Kirkpatrick. They are just tracking the other company where they hold stock. So perhaps like swine flu and other pandemics, this fad will just move right through our population and we will all be immune. No more 140 character soloquies from my friends on the sogginess of their breakfast cereal. Maybe we just all succumb to our society's lack of creativity compared to our great grandparents day's...

Twitter feels to me like SMS used to, addictive feedback that is always on... Perhaps that weakness is in me, not in the medium. Life may happen to us despite our other plans, but I think we need to be here and now. I think we should meet each other more, and scan the internet less..

PS. I shouldn't close this without a big thanks to some of the technology evangelists who have taught me by example what good Twitter can do - it is invidious to pick out individuals, but James Whateley (Spinvox) and Maria Sipka (Linqia) stand out. Which is not to blame my dumb Newbie comments on them!!

Hey Matt,
Thanks for the mention. Too kind sir, too kind.
And NO! Your words are certainly not 'dumb' in any way, shape or form.
Keep it up,
:)
J.
James Whatley
"Yup, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Ferris Bueller

Many thanks for mentioning me in your blog and your super positive comments! We really appreciate your support and continued contribution. It's great!!!

One small change to your blog - could you please change Linquia to Linqia? (Don't worry - most people misspell it thus we have registered both url's)

Warm regards
Maria

Comments

[Mark Littlewood]

I think that what Twitter is and what it will become are two different things. Early adopters can often seem like they are doing frivolous things but Dell has made $3 million from a Twitter account, ASOS gets over 15% of affiliate recommends through Twitter. As the vanity, spam and general nonsense increases, so will the business uses and so will the tools that help people filter the content that they want.

[Matt Schofield]

Great comment! But I still worry for myself about how consuming this stuff is. And how unsatisfying compared to just hanging out with people face to face.

[John Grant]

FCC now put train service alerts on Twitter -- see http://www.firstcapitalconnect.co.uk/Main.php?iCmsPageId=463 -- this is the first time I've seen a way in which Twitter is actually useful, though the way it's set up looks rather clunky.

[Matt Schofield]

Outstanding! I am really getting an education here in the uses of Twitter!