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Twitter .. what's the point ?

PolySciSurfer said:
To this day, I still don't get Twitter. Seems very tedious and pointless to me. Why not just send a text message? Basically it just seems to me like a huge text messaging list. Instead of doing it on your phone, you post online and it sends people the message for you. Oh well, to each his own. :D
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i'll give you a few examples:

- I have a cousin that's living abroad. We don't get a chance to talk much because of the time difference and expensive international calls. But we follow each other on twitter to keep up with what's going on each other's lives. Twitter has the advantage that we don't need to be logged in at the same time (we just check it when we have a chance) and it's more instant than sending a long, detailed email every now and then, since we post on twitter every day.

- Twitter is great for communicating with the masses. Any big piece of news is being discussed on twitter and you can find what everyone is saying about it by searching words related to it. It's also a powerful tool to know what are the big topics on everyone's minds. You can share your ideas on some topics and people who are interested can reply. But the important part is, you won't see anything you don't want to see. You will only see tweets from people you follow (people you're interested in) and topics you search. It doesn't matter that Ashton Kutcher is on twitter, you won't see his tweets if you don't want to. If you don't want to know what someone had for lunch everyday you can just unfollow that person.

- I'm going on a big trip around Europe this Summer. Whenever I get to a new place I can ask on twitter what places I should visit there. Since most twitter clients for the iPhone allow me to share my location people near me can immediately share what are the most interesting places around. This way I can get suggestions directly from the locals instead of just the typical guide books' tourist spots.

EDIT: In case anyone's interested right now some of the biggest topics on twitter are: Iran Election, iPhone, AT&T, Tehran...
 
It took me quite a while to warm to the idea of Twitter but now that I've used it, I rather like it. My short attention span appreciates it too. Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that. ;)
 
I don't get it either. I signed up for it, and i'm just like :confused:. What's the point? I don't feel like posting anything there and I don't feel like reading anything other people post. It seems totally worthless.
 
MegaMillions said:
I don't get it either. I signed up for it, and i'm just like :confused:. What's the point? I don't feel like posting anything there and I don't feel like reading anything other people post. It seems totally worthless.
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Well, twitter is about posting stuff and reading other people's posts. If you don't feel like doing either of them of course it's worthless...
 
I think that it's sort of trendy for young people. I am not interested in someone who just left post whatever. there are lots of similar apps. they seem almost all garbage to me. if you don't agree with me, it's OK. it is just stuff to me. I don't follow something that many people do. there are plenty of website which do the same thing. it's not text message thing or anything. well, somebody argue that it's actually making social networking. but it's not for wide range of ages. I had some apps. but recently I deleted all of them. useless.
 
I didn't like twitter, until more people I know started using it.
I also installed the twitter facebook app, so my tweets automatically update my facebook status. Killing 2 birds (pun?) with one stone. :)
 
I like Twitter, because now no journalist is writing about Second Life anymore.

I wouldn't dream of using it, though...:D
 
I like Twitter for when something cool happens and I'm not at home. I go to Comic Con in San Diego every year, and Disneyland multiple times a year, and sometimes I like to update from those places. It's a heck of a lot easier, quicker and more fun than hoping I can remember everything in enough detail to properly blog about it later that night. (I don't have a laptop.)

My favorite thing about Twitter, though, is it helped me realize that I can say exactly what I want to say in a lot less words than I thought I could. That, in turn, actually improved my school essays. I used to be even more long-winded, if you can believe it. :p

I'm not really a Twitter addict, though. I tend to check it once a week for about an hour and then I tire of it until the next week. It's become the best way to keep in touch with my friends, though, so I mostly use it for that. We can comment on each other's tweets without having to text each other constantly. Which is good because I don't type very fast on my phone and it would take forever to respond to people.
 
I honestly find Twitter to be facebook for attention seekers. Nobody cares that the queue at starbucks is so long you've got time to tell everyone on twitter, or that you're at the library revising, or that you've just eaten a so-so blt sandwich, it's useless drivel that replaces key memories and dates from my mind :p
 
*didnt read the first post*

well its kinda like... well stupid when you first sign up, but as you start doing it more and more you become obsessed! well at least that happened to me:rolleyes:
 
Twitter only works when you have a moderately large set of active users who all follow each other and have a common interest.
 
dont quite understand what your saying... but yea all my friends have twitter so we follow each other. otherwise i find it kinda stupid
 
IMO Twitter, like MySpace and FaceBook, helps people do things with the Internet that you've actually always been able to do anyway, but in an even more mindless way. Which apparently is the only way these things can reach critical mass with the max amount of users...sigh.

Just like GeoCities in its day...
 
Twitter is the devil spawn of Facebook's "status" implementation. I hate in on Facebook and to model an entire social networking service around it is laughable.

It's just one of those social phenomena that has gained momentum and reached a critical mass where people think they are missing something if they aren't "tweeting" simply because they hear the endemic twitter vocabulary so often throughout today's media.
 
Just an interesting fact: right now 9 of the top 10 Twitter trends are related to Michael Jackson.

What??? Twitter isn't just for people sharing what they had for lunch???

Shocking, I know... :rolleyes:

EDIT: Here's something about the importance of Twitter: Iran's Twitter Revolution
 
Twitter is the new "finger"

I searched for "twitter is the new finger" @ Google and found amazingly few hits. Dunno... I guess the heyday of the Unix "finger" command predates most people's Internet experience.

But not this guy's...

Twitter is the new finger


"Finger" is still around, btw... On your Mac, in fact.
 
MBHockey said:
Twitter is the devil spawn of Facebook's "status" implementation. I hate in on Facebook and to model an entire social networking service around it is laughable.

It's just one of those social phenomena that has gained momentum and reached a critical mass where people think they are missing something if they aren't "tweeting" simply because they hear the endemic twitter vocabulary so often throughout today's media.
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If you think twitter is a Facebook status then you have no idea what twitter is. If you ask me, twitter is more like a short email. Content-wise.
 
It can be quite handy and enjoyable if you are selective. As a journalist, I'm finding it quite valuable in tracking information, soliciting comments and finding new information. I can also promote my work that way.

For example, I found out of Michael Jackson's health scare and later reports of his death via Twitter far faster than CNN or The Associated Press flash alerts. Same when David Carradine died. I had already started pulling photos when the alert came across the wires.

Personally, I like it far more than Facebook with it's endless "Jimmy is a gay Idaho potato. What type of gay potato are you?" quizzes. I can in touch with people or just browse.

And there's the star factor. It is fun to hear tweets from celebs. Some of it is funny, some interesting. True, some of it is just pr but everyone does that to a degree.

So, in conclusion, I'd say if you use Twitter like a medical scalpel rather than a serial killer's axe, it can be damn useful.
 
twitter is public and searchable email that provides a simple and easy to remember name space. Twitter is real time, rss is not; Twitter is public, facebook is not.

who you follow shapes your twitter experience so ymmv.
 
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