This is a little bit of side note, but it may frame some of my arguments to come this semester. What's everyone's problem with Twitter? (Who else is on Twitter anyway?)
You've all heard about it. You all have favorite celebrities, politicians, athletes, musicians who tweet. Why do people think it's simply a minute-by-minute post of mundane topics. (I'm eating a Tuna sandwich).
By the way, I hate tuna. I would never post that (or eat that).
Twitter is micro-blogging. It's sharing your thought with the world in 140 characters. It's the best way to share a link or a photo. You can easily share what you find interesting.
I've met more people (that were strangers) on Twitter than I have on Facebook. It's all industry-based. Believe you me, if you are (or want to be) in the news industry, get on Twitter now. Like tonight. Go!
I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on the matter. I'm going to tie in this argument with a lot of the readings.
I have a Twitter account; I've had it for years actually. I don't ever use it, though. I both hate and love it and here's why:
ReplyDeleteI use it to keep track of things software developers of apps and exploits for iPhone. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to keep up with new developments.
I follow a lot of comedians and their tweets are hilarious and make my day interesting IF I check them, which I never do, because holy god how does ANYONE have time to use that website?
I'm sorry, I spend a lot of time on the internet reading things and most of it is basically trivial, but I don't have time to sift through all of this bombardment. It's easy to ignore 100 tweets, because they are short, but I also feel like it DOES encourage a lot of mundane stuff.
You and I hold a different set of standards for what is mundane; of course no one is posting that they are eating a sandwich (although if it was a really nice sandwich I might even want to know) but I also don't want to read all the stuff in between the jokes or the news I'm actually interested in.
And the trending topics are useless for sorting for me because I don't actually want a bunch of random peoples' opinions of things, sorry random people.
Then again, you are probably a lot more adept with it than I am and I might be using it wrong? I assume this to be the case.
But I think a lot of people don't like Twitter because they just don't care about people's opinions on things as much as others. Sure, I follow people whose opinions I enjoy hearing and that is a fulfillment of its purpose, but I don't want to read the tweets of a bunch of random no-name people and that's what the website is filled to the brim with. There's a lot to not care about surrounding a really incredible core service and an absolutely genius method of social networking (trust me, I actually like Twitter; just don't use it much)
I also like the way that it dismantles an absolutely incredible amount of filters between high valued persons (celebrities, etc) and their fans/followers. I think that is what makes it somewhat invaluable.
But I find using Twitter to be an excruciating exercise. I read articles from the thinkers I appreciate; their Twitter accounts? Not enough there.
And although there is a lower barrier of entry for feedback to them, I don't see it as inevitable that my opinion will be read (let alone valued) by someone who has 34939489 followers. It's impossible, and maybe it's just me but the way it feels impossible to keep up with makes me stay away.
Hey Andrew--I used Twitter for a while but then something corrupted my account and sent sexual invitations to all my followers. It wasn't worth it to start all over again--anyone I was interested in was already a friend on FB.
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