I hate Twitter.
Which is not to say I've put it through all its paces and understand its essence. I suppose it's the latest step on my march to curmudgeon-hood, but I've never understood why a person would use a numeric keypad to send text messages and like it.
I believe there's utility in texting - leaving messages for people without the need to interrupt them or engage in a full discussion - but conversing via a text pad is like drinking a milkshake through a cocktail straw. Once the novelty wears off, it's just more work.
True, smart phones offer full QWERTY - and the UI is getting better - but you still have the hard character limit. I like my messages in words (as opposed to "c u l8r") and converting URLs using Bit.ly or tinyurl is another thing I wouldn't have to do if the format wasn't so limited.
Bleah.
Then there's the larger question: Twitter brings your text content to a wider audience - but why? Is there anything I'm doing that I need to tell the world about? As I'm sure most have you have heard - *I* don't want to know what I'm up to most of the time - why the hell would I offer up my current activities to the world at large? I get that there are myriad uses for twitter: rapid feedback and distribution - but I'd suggest these are very different models for the individual.
Much like any other new internet service - buried in all the rapid delivery of my information are a host of privacy issues. The website PleaseRobMe - aggregates tweets that disclose that the user is no longer at their house (i.e. you can rob their house now) - which yet another example of pushback against this willingness of people to put their data onto the web without thinking about the consequences.
Sure, the odds that someone is going to rob you based on your twitter feed are pretty thin - but by saying "I'm at the coffee house listening a jazz band," you are disclosing information that a potential robber would not otherwise be able to get.
I find privacy paranoids about as tiresome as most people do - but they're only slightly more annoying than the common assumption that whatever new social media site is something you must try (Take Yammer - yet another place to go and read pointless crap, that is summarized and emailed to you). Sure, give it a go - but don't let the novelty lull you into doing something foolish.
(H/t Felix Salmon)
2 comments:
I agree that Twitter has limited usefulness for the individual - I haven't posted anything in 3 months, and even then it was a response to someone else.
On the other hand, I follow a number of organizations, like ResourceShelf and Governing Magazine, and I often run across interesting and useful reports or stories that way. Granted, their Twitter feed is not much different from their RSS, so really, it's just an additional way to get the same info. But sometimes I prefer the Twitter feed for some reason. Maybe because I use Bloglines for my rss. heh.
you aren't on a march to curmudgeon hood, you are there.
As for twitter, there's a difference between public feeds and private feeds, and I suspect we'll start seeing a lot more private ones.
I like twitter for just the reasons that E enumerates. There's a lot of utility to it... for certain groups. Personal? meh.
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