I can’t begin a series of posts on social web sites, without first looking at the one every site ALWAYS gets compared to over and over again - Twitter. I go to a new site and it’s “Well, Twitter does it this way” and “I like the way Twitter handles this better” or “Twitter is cleaner” and until recently, “Is Twitter down for you?”
It seems everything has to live up to or surpass some unwritten “Twitter Standard” (Twindard?) for the masses to accept and/or use the new service. Twitter is like that “Perfect” older brother you always get compared to when you bring your grades home from school. If it helps you understand the context, you can call it the “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha” Syndrome. Always being measured against a standard you know is almost impossible to attain. Since all of my reviews will HAVE to compare the site to Twitter in order to form a frame of reference usable by most who read this blog, I decided to start by talking about Twitter and why I think it is so dominate now.
For those of you among us who are not “Technorati” or technology early/over adopters, you may ask your self, “Why are we talking about bird sounds?” (Note: for the Early/Over adopters, you may want to skim down a few paragraphs as you will find this section a tad boring. It’s OK, go ahead, the rest of us will catch up to you in a bit) Well, we are not talking the sounds of a bird, or light giggling, the “other” definition of twitter - to talk lightly and rapidly, esp. of trivial matters; chatter. In the briefest possible definition, Twitter.com is a site dedicated to light, rapid chat in an environment which would make the most ADHD among us squeal with glee.
Use of the site is quite simple, after you sign up for an account, you can post anything that comes to mind as long as it can be stated in 140 characters or less. This is called a “tweet” among those in the know and displays on the screen as you enter it. While this posting to yourself can be a fun way to get a lot off of your chest, it quickly looses its luster and you are left staring at a screen with your random thoughts staring back at you. A rather scary proposition for some of us. The “fun” in twitter comes in finding and following interesting “Tweeple”, or other people who are out there posting tweets at the same time as you. These people come in all varieties and ideological flavors which can give rise to some interesting discourses.
To find someone to follow is as hard as it is simple. You can start by looking at the public time-line and seeing if anyone has said something interesting in the past few seconds; that’s the simple part. Here’s the hard part of this exercise, figuring out what’s really interesting and what is reply fluff or TwitterSpam (More on that later). If you don’t see something that strikes your fancy, just refresh your page and I am VERY sure you will have a whole new list to look at and choose from. the reason for this is the huge number of people who use Twitter and the even larger number of their posts. Once you find a tweet that seems interesting, you can click on that person’s ID and read other posts by that particular user. If you like what you see, click on the little button labeled “Follow”. The person you just “Followed” will get a message you are now reading their posts and you may or may not get “followed” back in return. By the way, if you follow one of the “famous” Technorati, don’t expect to get followed. Some of those folks have a HUGE list of followers (Leo Laporte has over 50,000 folowers!) and if they followed everyone, it would be like drinking from a fire hose.
Ok, now you’ve Tweeted and followed someone, what now? Well,…um…really…, that’s all there is to it. Yes, there are other features, such as importing your address list and seeing if people you know are already on the site, or looking for and finding other people, that, essentially, I have given you about 75% of what Twitter is all about from a USAGE point of view. From here everything gets a bit mushier/”insider”ish and involves social memes, twitter spam, and echo chamber discussions. You’re welcome to continue reading or go play with Twitter a bit and come back.
For those of you skimming, this is the place to reconnect.
Yes, I know Twitter is more than what I just said, but I didn’t want to frighten the new folks. Some of this stuff is almost better if it is self discovered over time, but we DO need to talk about it for a bit. First, the Echo Chamber effect. I have discovered it is VERY easy to only follow those who hold the same view as you on various topics. Humans tend to shy away from conflict and gather in groups who are “like” they are in various ways, either in appearance, social standing, ideology, of MAC vs. PC preference (DO NOT GO THERE.) We do that in real life and we also tend to do this in our Twitter life. When this occurs, you end up in an echo chamber which parrots back to you your own ideals and it becomes VERY easy to imagine the majority of people feel/believe the same way as you do on various topics. A great example of this is the recent vote on Prop8 in California. Regardless of your views on the Prop itself, I was in an interesting position on Twitter. I had a number of people I follow on both sides of the issue that did not have friends from the opposing side. Each side thought they were in the majority of popular thought because of the posts they read on Twitter and at least one of those groups turned out to be surprised on election day.
We need to stay away from the Echo Chamber if at all possible while following people. I make an attempt to follow folks from across the spectrum, even those who make my blood pressure go up with each post. I don’t do this because I am trying to have an early stroke, but to make sure I am seeing a multitude of ideas and information. Good ideas come from everywhere and limiting yourself is ridiculous.
Tune in next post, where I will try to finish up my thoughts on this “perfect” big brother and see why all of the other sites have the “Marsh, Marsha, Marsha” Syndrome. Also, feel free to send me your favorite Twitter application hints or leave them in the comments and I will aggregate them as a future post.
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