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View Full Version : Why is Twitter so popular?



John Coloccia
08-13-2011, 10:23 AM
I'll start by saying that I have been accused of being misanthropic, and honestly this is probably a good description. That doesn't mean I'm rude but it does mean that generally most people just bug me. I mean, come on....if you have a cart full of vegetables, and you don't know how to use the stupid self-checkout line, then get in the normal line so I don't have to watch you fumble around trying to figure out how to ring up a bag of Spanish onions. I mean, they show you PICTURES of the thing....how difficult can this be??

But I digress.

I find that other than my wife, even the people I like and even my closest friends and family members absolutely start to get on my nerves after a day or so. Hey, I love my friends and I would do most anything for them but I DON'T want to live with them. It's that simple.

So I'm trying to imagine what it might be like to have access to the most insignificant thoughts of my family, friends and acquaintances. I'm on Facebook and it's already inundated with updates like:

"Getting coffee now"

"Coffee is too hot....letting it cool"

"Forgot about the coffee and now I have to make more. Oh poo!"

I can hardly imagine what it might be like to have realtime access to every neuron that fires in every brain of everyone I've ever known. It seems like it would be a never ending cacophony of self important twaddle.

And then I stop and think about he obvious business uses of Twitter, and I wonder why no one (that I know of) has implemented this yet. Get rid of the stupid 140 character limit, and setup project workspaces, oh I don't know....we could call them Twits, I guess. As things occur, information becomes available, etc, what better way to share it and capture it with the entire project team than via a Twitter-like system? Hmmmm? Lack of communication sinks most of the projects I've seen fail, and Twitter would make it easy, yet all the technology gets used for is:

"Blew my nose."

"Owie...I burned my tongue on hot pizza."

etc...

David G Baker
08-13-2011, 11:12 AM
I must have similar traits because most of the things that you covered in your post hit me in the same way you described. :)

Mike Henderson
08-13-2011, 11:38 AM
I'm sure there are some good uses for Twitter but I've asked your question to a lot of people and have never received a response that made sense to me.

Mike

Neal Clayton
08-13-2011, 11:53 AM
narcissistic society?

Myk Rian
08-13-2011, 3:43 PM
People on Twitter need to get a life.

Bryan Morgan
08-13-2011, 5:29 PM
I'm not part of the twitter or facebook crowd and I pretty much despise both (as I've posted several times in the past)...BUT... I must admit I found something I actually enjoy about twitter. My wife and I are pretty big NASCAR fans and a lot of drivers use twitter. Its great to read them talking trash on each other or to get different viewpoints of wrecks and whatnot.

Other than that, I could care less what other people are doing in their lives and I certainly don't care to tell everyone else about mine, especially every little mundane detail. Maybe its because at work, dealing with SOX stuff we have to do a lot of reports and change requests and stuff... this (waste of time) paperwork takes longer than the actual work does. Seems it would take longer to tell somebody about getting coffee than it does to just go get it. With limited hours of life on this planet that doesn't seem like a good way to spend it.

Montgomery Scott
08-13-2011, 6:37 PM
Oh, the irony.

Dave Lehnert
08-13-2011, 7:03 PM
I just got on twitter 2 weeks ago just to see what it is all about. I don't see it myself. I do kinda like the tweets from news sources like USA today and NBC, CNN etc..... Gets everything in one place.

Joe Leigh
08-13-2011, 7:30 PM
Oh, the irony.

Bingo.....

John Coloccia
08-13-2011, 8:47 PM
Oh, the irony.


Bingo.....

I think there's a difference between a message board where the only input from Montgomery and Joe is when you're in a thread that interests me as well, and a service where to get any of your input I must get it all.

I see a difference, anyway.

Gary Hodgin
08-13-2011, 9:07 PM
It's a generational thing in large part. I don't twitter and never will. Heck, I don't even have a Facebook account, although my wife does. My youngest daughter, 30, "stays" on twitter when she's not at work. She drops by for dinner a few times a week and it's impossible to have a coherent discussion with her because she keeps her attention on her ipad and twitter.

The younger generation wants to stay connected. I retired from a university and most of my students in a sophomore level econ class would come to class on the phone and get back on the phone the minute class dismissed.

Abi Parris
08-13-2011, 10:20 PM
Oh, crap. I am getting old(er)... which leads me to say: If I want to know how, what or who a friend of mine is doing, I'll take the radical step of dialing their phone number! At least then, when I've reached my saturation point, there's a button to press to make the noise stop. ;)

Rick Potter
08-14-2011, 3:03 AM
Well, on one hand, I don't twit or face, but then again I don't eat Indian Potpourri either.

Hee hee, couldn't resist.

Rick Potter

John Coloccia
08-14-2011, 3:55 AM
Well, on one hand, I don't twit or face, but then again I don't eat Indian Potpourri either.

Hee hee, couldn't resist.

Rick Potter

Touche'

The real irony, if there is one, is that my wife posted about our little ongoing adventure on Facebook. :)

Joe Leigh
08-14-2011, 10:01 AM
Removed...

Jim Tobias
08-14-2011, 12:20 PM
Somewhere along the line it went from:
"Don't stick your nose in my business"

to

"I'm going to stick all of my business up your nose 24/7"

It does seem like a waste of so much time/energy on ??


Jim

bob svoboda
08-14-2011, 12:34 PM
Hey John, I'm going to go put on my shoes and take my coffee down to the shop so may be out of touch for a few hours. :D

Jim Koepke
08-14-2011, 1:47 PM
Then there is this:


(waste of time) paperwork takes longer than the actual work does.

I worked a public agency job like that. No paper work, you didn't do the work. Take the time to do the paper work and you won't have time to do the work that needs doing.

Retired from that to be a semi-hermit.

The only tweets around here are the birds in the trees.

Does anyone really want to know the chickens are eating all my plants in the greenhouse?

jtk

Rick Potter
08-14-2011, 6:43 PM
Self defense posting:

Just in case someone happens to check, and finds out I DO have a facebook account, let me say.....It ain't me, I didn't do it, I'm not on it, anyone who wants to 'friend' me will be disappointed. My wife, addicted to Farmville, started an account for me and any other relative she could think of so she could have a larger 'farm'.

OK, I know that nobody cares, but I had to get that off my chest.

The new 'togetherness: She farms, whilst I sawmill.

Rick Potter

PS: For my facebook followers... I just bought one of those 52 ounce, Costco size bins of peanut butter filled pretzels. The package doesn't mention being a single serving.

Jeff Nicol
08-14-2011, 9:20 PM
We have a Facebook account just for the kids so we get quick updates on them and the grandkids, and some of my boys will send me pictures of big bucks that get captured on the trail cameras. Other than that it is just a lot of nonsense like you said. The twitter thing makes very little sense at all to me, the only thing I have heard about is that if you are a follower of someone that may or may not be important or a star, sports icon or political hack to name a few, sometimes they will anounce things on the tweets that are only for the "Tweety birds" that are following. So lets say a multi billionaire says that they will be anouncing a free money give away once a week they will get a huge following and one of them may get a wad of cash, but that is a pretty far fetched scenario but I may be tempted to be a follower then!

I don't even have a real cell phone, just a Tracfone that I use when I am away from home and need to call my wife to let her know I am coming home and is there anything we need at the grocery store, so no texts, tweets, facetime, and I like it that way!

I may be a "Ludite"but I like the lack of interuptions,

Jeff

Pat Barry
08-14-2011, 9:24 PM
What it amounts to is too much time on their hands.

Jason Roehl
08-14-2011, 10:40 PM
The texting and driving thing bugs the snot out of me (they could be tweeting for that matter...). I don't think we need laws about it specifically, just the general one against distracted driving--when it causes the driver to make mistakes. Anyway, just today I was driving through town behind this little red Hyundai, and at every stoplight, I'd see the driver's head drop to focus on something in his lap. Twice I had to honk at him to get him to go when the light turned green. The first time was a friendly beep, the second time? Not so much...

And to think I just bought a motorcycle again today after a 10-year hiatus from that little hobby...

Marty Paulus
08-15-2011, 8:46 AM
Not on Facebook nor am I on Twitter. I, along with many of you , do not see the point of it. My business is my own. I don't care what you are doing every second of your life. If I want to know what you are doing I have your number stored in my phone. I am not completely out of touch though. Wife and I just got new 'smart' phones. We text each other just because while we are at work it is easier to do then to try to find a good time to call. Same with some of the friends. One thing with texting is it is focused on who you want to communicate with not out there for the whole world to know.

Ben Hatcher
08-15-2011, 12:34 PM
I am on both. If you just see these as updates on minutia, I propose you’re not following the right people. Not a single person in either my twitter or facebook feed posts banal things such as going to get coffee. If any of them did, I block their status updates from my facebook feed and/or unfollow them on twitter. By in large, I find both to be valuable in keeping me updated on things that are going on in my city, my sports teams, or with my friends and family. I’ve also learned a lot from various links friends have posted on topics of interest to them. For example, one friend is a photographer and often posts interesting, instructional, articles on how to take better photographs. Many of the people I follow on twitter are comedians or comedy writers and I find their witty observations amusing.

Twitter, as a business/marketing tool, isn’t dissimilar to the thread titles on smc or a headline on any news website. There’s a blurb describing it and a url to follow if you want to learn more.

Jim Rimmer
08-15-2011, 12:55 PM
I don't Twitter (or tweet?). We had a different version the company set up and I was on it for about a week and it was driving me nuts so i uninstalled it. I was on the verge of closing my Facebook down until my high school class started a "Remember When" thing leading up to our upcoming reunion; It's kind of fun to read. After the reunion I will probably shut down the account. As an example of the down side of testing/tweeting, we were at a restaurant with some family members and there was a cousin in her late forties and her twentyish daughter at the table. The whole time we were there, they were texting each other. YIKES!

To me, it seems like an evolutionary thing: email killed snail mail; Facebook killed email except for inane forwarded junk; twitter is killing Facebook. Makes me wonder what's next.

Jeff Nicol
08-16-2011, 10:54 PM
The thing I find so insane about the whole lot of the new "Information" methods is that most of the folks who are on them are on them all the time!!! How the heck can you get any work done if you are all constantly checking your tweets, texts, missed calls while you were tweeting or texting, news feeds, face book and one only knows what else is out there to be looking at all day long when one should be working? How does someone text 500-1000 texts in a day? I saw a show where a father got a bill from the cell phone provider before unlimited texts were the rage and the bill was astronomical for each text over the paid for amount, when can you have any time for anything else but having some sort of device in your hands every waking minute of the day? My kids are on them but not the twitter thing yet, they still know how to read a book or go for a walk in the forest to get away from having someone else in your world all the time. One of my honorary boys stops in and he goes on the computer, has the smart phone going at the same time. If I try to talk to him it is like he is in a different world or deaf! I will never understand, because I don't have that much time to waste everyday.

I may go for a week and not look on SMC, it is just for a little information and maybe to offer some help on one thing or another. I could live without it and not ever miss it, but since I don't go out to the bars, go to a health club, or need to talk to someone every day,it is just a diversion from the norm.

To each his/her own,

Jeff

Darius Ferlas
08-17-2011, 12:31 AM
In June I attended a most interesting lecture by an IT big shot working for EU. It was a part of a series devoted to Cloud Computing and Social Media.

Long story short, governments (including tax departments) LOVE Facebook and many have close ties (and monetary investment) with this and other social sites. It's a 1984 come true and the population volunteers the most intimate tidbits of their personal and financial lives.

Belinda Barfield
08-17-2011, 7:26 AM
I dont Tweet. I was resistant to Facebook for a long time, but finally joined because that became my extended family's primary form of communication. I have to admit that it has been enjoyable seeing photos of my younger cousins that I wouldn't ordinarily see (photos of first day of school, birthday parties, etc.). One of the things I really dislike about Facebook though is the chat feature. Getting off chat is worse than trying to say goodbye on the phone.

"Gotta' go."

"Okay, see you later."

"Okay."

"Have a good evening."

"Thanks, you too."

"Talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay."

It never ends!

And that thing of getting a friend request from someone I don't know, or don't remember, or didn't like when I was 16, etc. is just annoying.

Having said all of that, I do see the irony.

Ron Conlon
08-17-2011, 1:39 PM
Hey John, I'm going to go put on my shoes and take my coffee down to the shop so may be out of touch for a few hours. :D

Hmm, that was a couple of days ago. Maybe someone should go check on him.

John Coloccia
08-17-2011, 1:44 PM
Hmm, that was a couple of days ago. Maybe someone should go check on him.

Didn't you get the memo? He just had french fries. They were soggy.

David Keller NC
08-17-2011, 5:05 PM
You are simply seeing the logical endpoint of the kind of enablement that technology brings - it not only enables the good aspects about human nature, it also enables the worst aspects of human behavior. One does not have to be a curmudgeon or have anti-social tendencies to understand that everyone in the society perhaps should not be given a bullhorn. There have been many well-designed and scientifically defensible studies that show that many aspects of social media have similar effects on the human brain as addictive drugs.

However, there's a self-limiting aspect to these behaviors. Our immediate ancestors would not have been able to make use of Twitter, Facebook, video games and many of the other "pasttimes" that we engage in today because they would not have put in sufficient work time to feed themselves. Our high technology makes all of us, even the poorest, quite a bit richer than even high middle-class status of the 19th century, so much so that we can waste many hours on these activities and not starve to death.

However, the 20-somethings that do not have the same misgivings about using up 7-8 or more hours a day being chatty and therefore spend most of their time doing it will see their productivity and therefore their income go down as a result, meaning that eventually they won't be able to feed themselves.

That's a good thing. Personally, and even though I have one because I am required to for work, I would much prefer that the fundamental technology that enables cell phones would suddenly stop functioning tomorrow.

Dale Coons
08-17-2011, 5:31 PM
That's a good thing. Personally, and even though I have one because I am required to for work, I would much prefer that the fundamental technology that enables cell phones would suddenly stop functioning tomorrow.

Amen. Its an ongoing battle with the short people in my house-- If it wasn't important enough to pick up a real phone to bother me with, don't bother texting or tweeting (twitting?) me. If you want a buck, for example, wait till I get home to ask. I can't tweet it back!

Bryan Morgan
08-17-2011, 10:21 PM
In June I attended a most interesting lecture by an IT big shot working for EU. It was a part of a series devoted to Cloud Computing and Social Media.

Long story short, governments (including tax departments) LOVE Facebook and many have close ties (and monetary investment) with this and other social sites. It's a 1984 come true and the population volunteers the most intimate tidbits of their personal and financial lives.

People don't realize the CIA funded Facebook... hmmm wonder why? :)

Neal Clayton
08-18-2011, 2:54 PM
People don't realize the CIA funded Facebook... hmmm wonder why? :)

because they didn't?

Rod Sheridan
08-18-2011, 3:22 PM
Well, on one hand, I don't twit or face, but then again I don't eat Indian Potpourri either.

Hee hee, couldn't resist.

Rick Potter

Come on Rick, after a good meal of really hot Vindaloo I'm sure like me, you'll eat the potpouri...............LOL................Rod.

Rod Sheridan
08-18-2011, 3:26 PM
205509

And to think I just bought a motorcycle again today after a 10-year hiatus from that little hobby...

Jason, you know the rules, no photo, no event!

Diann just bought herself a new bike, here's a photo of her leaving the dealer with it..........Rod.

Jason Roehl
08-18-2011, 7:13 PM
=

Jason, you know the rules, no photo, no event!



There's a pic on Facebook... ;)

Neal Clayton
08-18-2011, 8:30 PM
There's a pic on Facebook... ;)

well played

David Cefai
08-21-2011, 2:35 PM
A recent article on New Scientist stated that there exists a "Social Gene". People with this become twitterati (twits?)