Why Twitter?
Most people who have used Twitter have received the question/statement, “why would anyone ever use it? No one cares what I ate for lunch today.” I particularly liked this answer for Crooked Timber, “By the way, if you neither like nor understand Twitter, that’s perfectly OK: no-one is making you follow anyone.”
Basically, who cares who cares if you care? Or, in a slightly less cryptic way, what’s the difference if anyone is listening or not you’re enjoying yourself?
Anyway, I’ve said this before when asked if I had advice for grasping what’s going on online: Go screw around. If you don’t like what’s happening, that’s totally cool, at least you’ve got your own opinion. I think it’s a much better way to be.
Hi, I'm 
Nice post, dude. I think most people still see Twitter as a tiny tiny blog, where the usual questions about narcissism come up. Twitter is very different. It’s just as much about listening as it is talking. If you keep worrying about why anyone would want to listen to you, you’re thinking about yourself too much. Use it to listen to people you care about. If nobody you care about is on there, then maybe it’s not for you.
…but I’d argue that it’s pretty easy to find really interesting / helpful / meaningful people on Twitter.
Yeah, that’s a very good point … Stop worrying who’s listening to you and start worrying about who your listening to?
Well, I’ve been trying to understand Twitter and a tool to keep in touch if people. First I thought “Why would I put my simple thoughts there?”, but now, I think I can change my mind and use Twitter as a photography in 140 words!
>what’s the difference if anyone is listening…
It’s noise. But it’s easy enough to tune out, so that doesn’t bother me.
What makes microblogging less compelling is the general lack of context. Unless you’re constantly tuned in to the noise, it’s difficult to peek in and make heads or tails of something like:
“Justine is right. If it has to go through legal, it’s not a conversation. http://ow.ly/TS 11:14 PM Dec 15th from web”
It’s like simultaneously watching 100 TVs with each one constantly changing channels.
Another take on Twitter, from today’s NY Times: (link:http://is.gd/ckg0 )
She advises people to use it as a news feed. With all the major media outlets providing a fairly constant Twitter stream, I thought that was actually a very clever notion, one that may actually make Twitter useful for the Crooked Timber’s of the world.
(Your timing on this was ideal – the email with your update came but seconds after I finished reading the article.)