Welcome to the home of Noah Brier. I'm the co-founder of Variance and general internet tinkerer. Most of my writing these days is happening over at Why is this interesting?, a daily email full of interesting stuff. This site has been around since 2004. Feel free to get in touch. Good places to get started are my Framework of the Day posts or my favorite books and podcasts. Get in touch.

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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.

December 17, 2008