Being online is evolving today as it did around 1996, then with the arrival of the World Wide Web. Today, it is the widening of the more abrupt, mobile usefulness that is changing the Internet, including many business uses, such as advertising and promoting goods and services.
The growth of online media is turning the Internet into a blend of functions for business and personal use. There are now reasonably good online ways to enjoy TV shows and movies, make phone calls, socialize, play action-packed games, get news, do research, and do business all with one mobile doo-hickie. Of course, it all works on a desktop computer, too.
While it may seem strangely pointless to those who haven't utilized it, Twitter is a tool many have already tapped into, and it will be growing, especially among the info junkies out there. It has value in its seeming extreme smallness.
A TechCrunch writer recently reported live from a Twitter event, paraphrasing comments made by Twitter's leadership: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/twitter-event/
The live post includes some good points that, I found, build upon my own sense of Twitter usefulness, from Evan Williams, a cofounder:
- Twitter is a real-time information network.
- Twitter levels the playing field between creators and consumers of content.
- Every individual voice adds value — we had to change from 'what are you doing?' to 'what's happening?'
- What we try to help people understand when they start using Twitter is that you don't have to tweet.
- It's the same as the idea that you don't have to make a webpage to use the web. There is something on Twitter for everyone.
You can use Twitter just like the old World Wide Web: to consume content, not provide it. I find Twitter to be less a social network than an information hub, myself. With it, I get and share info and news, with links that go from 140 character tweets to much more information on the Web. Every now and then, I respond to someone's tweet, but the back-and-forth is actually pretty limited for me. That's not the case for all, though: there are plenty of chatty tweeters out there.
Facebook is a bigger beast, of course, and has some similar uses. But, by contrast to that terrific social network, Twitter's inherent focus, its spatial "smallness", is good for focusing attention. Distractions are at a minimum, you could say. To me, Twitter is better for sharing than Facebook, since you can follow a stream of tweets and pull from all sorts of sources, condensed in a single, active steam. It feels more immediate, too. It seems easier to view more tweets in less time than viewing material on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks.
Twitter is helping me see news or share news, whether my interest of the moment is politics, business, fun, intriguing science, or other. And I follow mere hundreds, yet those people lead me in all kinds of directions.
As an info junkie, I find Twitter very useful to see others' opinions, shared links, and to catch more than one might think 140 characters can offer. Good writers know that brevity is itself an art form. Plus, Twitter gives license to abbreviate common words, such as cutting "about" to "abt". Writers generally don't abbreviate like that. So social media's need for brevity encourages another craft in wordsmithing: creative omission.
L8r!
You may follow me as @jonosterholm and @Ringhorne on Twitter.
- Jon