“Twitter is dead, long live Twitter”
I’m going to stop cross-posting my Twitter to these pages. I’m also going to try one last time to get you mugs to give the damned thing a shot. If you haven’t yet, you’re probably not going to. And given it’s current hyper-zealous embrace by an institutional media desperate for appearances of relevance, I’m not sure I can blame you.
But you still should join. Not because it’s hyped-up, but because it’s interesting.
Way back in late ‘07 – allow this geek some cred here – I gave my first argument for joining up. In it, I emphasized the community element of it, the idea of a sort of asynchronous, persistent IM: “Hey (circle of friends on Twitter), heading to Damgoode, be there ’til 8 or so, glad for company.” I tweet that at around 7, it goes into all of ya’ll’s feeds, tadaa, you all have an open invitation.” This was the early model, which is still kind of neat.
But the new revealed utility is its brevity. The true interestingness of Twitter is not just the connectedness, but the brevity. Right now, conjure to to mind something you’ve been thinking about recently. Now try and express it in 144 characters – which is the limit Twitter sets. Having a worthwhile idea on your mind is easy. Being able to convey any worthwhile idea in a couple of sentence is what good writing it made of.
Do it to train your mind to make concise jokes and arguments.
Example tweets from the past week:
Think of it as a challenge. It’s a brain exercise! really!
Unless you mugs are too scared to try the new.
Opening image via: Flick user Monstro.
oh, fine.
but only cos i already jot down little bullshit like this on my ipod notes all day anyway.
first impressions: it’s like walking through couch and reading the whiteboards, but more sterile. also, i think if i keep at it, the 144-character thing is going to start fucking with the way i form thoughts. also, i think i already really hate the idea of oscar wilde-style pithiness becoming a new popular form of vanity.
i don’t know about this one, ethan.
yeah, i guess i’m out of touch, but i really don’t get it.
i can see the open invite to join you for pizza thing if we were all so connected all of the time to receive the messages immediately, but like you said, that’s not really what it’s used for. instead it’s a bunch of shit that’s either boring or confusing, mainly both. i don’t know. it just doesn’t seem useful or interesting to me at all. i already get tired of people’s facebook status updates, which is more or less the same thing as far as i can tell.
- More Convincing Necessary
Durham, NC
I basically agree with Alex. I’ve heard enough nonsensical/ pseudo-intellectual sounding shit to have my fill and don’t desire to hear any more. Funny shit, until it’s not.
Alright, I’ll see if I can’t reframe it one more time for you knuckle-draggers ; )
“also, i think i already really hate the idea of oscar wilde-style pithiness becoming a new popular form of vanity.”
So very well put!
@benji88 http://i40.tinypic.com/doubrm.jpg
@Barrythebeaver What? http://twitter.com/benji88
@onlyethan4u i was just implying that if benji joined twitter, we might finally see some of his racist side - didn’t consider that there would be a benji88 already.