Random musings on random stuff.
Why do you twitter?
(BTW, comment editing is weird, at least in FF3)
Thanks - I'll look at the comment editting in FF3. (editting uses the dojo toolkit which relies on flash for some data storage, which might be the reason).
I've often wondered this too as I don't use twitter myself. Someone helped me explain it best by saying she used twitter to broadcast messages to friends. For example, she could twitter from her phone that she's at a certain bar. Then she might have some friends who subscribe to instant notification of her twitter messages and they could meet her at the bar if they wanted. But that's much different than just calling people to invite them to the bar. It's more casual and doesn't hold anyone to an obligation of showing up at the bar. While this made sense to me it didn't make me jump up and start using twitter. (But maybe that's just because I don't have any friends ... kidding.)
It's down so often that I consider it broken. It's over. Let it go.
- Jonathan Hartley
tartley@tartley.com
I never picked it up, so letting go of something you've not used (because you don't see the point) is really easy :-)
also, note to self - fix apostophes in comment headings...
It's quickly replacing instant messaging as a social sideband while working. An IM conversation (socially) demands a lot of attention at the moment, but people twittering into the aether allows one to dip in and out as desired.
As for what it offers, not what it's not: it's social contact when otherwise isolated at the computer; it's quickly turning into the internet's watercooler; it's a social attention service, whether those be viral videos, interesting news, or intriguing APIs.
As for why I participate: it's great for getting quick feedback on ideas, having loosely-coupled conversations, commiserating with rants/things lost/things missed, and entertaining people. For me, though, it really does perform the purpose of a microblog: it's a reminder to my future self (and google) of things that were noteworthy in the moment.
Concretely, it's the (mutually) cheapest, quickest way of getting a hold of me whilst abroad: a direct message can be free from the web, but shows up on my mobile wherever I go.
—@atl