Looking For The Usefulness in Twitter
By now most everyone’s probably heard about Twitter. Evan Williams, who started Blogger, and then Odeo, has moved on to his next project which is called Twitter. If you’ve been under a rock, it’s sort of instant messenger input meets blog-style publishing. I’m blurring the lines here on The Apple Blog just a bit, but since Twitter has some nice OS X support, I’m going for it.
I get stuck (and a migraine) when I try understanding how exactly Twitter can be useful. It seems so flippant toward the idea of publishing anything real and useful. At best, it’s a clever Away Status Message for your IM client, only one that the world can see rather than just your chat buddies. Maybe I’m just being close-minded, but I fail to see the point, and really can’t help but feel like it’s a goofy fad that’s soon to fade away.
I’m asking for your help here readers. Enlighten me as to why I should put my Twitter account to use. Have you come up with an idea that puts Twitter to an actually good use? I’d love to hear all the gory details – especially if it’s something that gets me to see the light and start using it myself. Or on the flip side, tell me that I’m not alone!!
Julian Bennett Holmes on March 18th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Can I really comment on posts before they’re posted? Awesome…
Anyways, I like twitter because people can see what I’m up to, where I am. It’s not a competitor to blogging, at least not for me.
You’re right, it is kind of like a glorified away message, but I like it. It may not be entirely useful, but it is fun.
Louis Gray on March 19th, 2007 at 12:03 am
Nick and Julian, for me, I see Twitter and IM in general to be a great way to take more effort to communicate less efficiently. On my personal blog in January, I wrote Why I Stopped Using IM and Won’t Use Twitter. When I see people at the office on IM, they aren’t communicating on a professional level, but are taking longer to say less. Twitter makes the need to post mundane updates in a way that makes MySpace look like the Wall Street Journal.
Charlie on March 19th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I travel a lot with my job and I’m in and out of the office all the time. I use twitter to keep my boss, my co-workers and my wife updated on where I am and what I’m doing.
Jane on March 19th, 2007 at 9:45 am
This is totally one of those swing-and-a-miss moments.
Stretch on March 19th, 2007 at 9:46 am
I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing Nick. I’ve seen people talking about it, looked at it, and decided not to. Most of the stuff is just mundane worthless notes that don’t really matter.
denny on March 19th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Count me out on this. I suppose I’m just not important enough to use it. Seems very silly to me… and I can’t help but think it’s one of those things about our culture that, in the future, will seem embarrassing. Too much time on our hands… too much technology… too much information. Do you really need to know when I’ve stepped out to check the mail or walk the dog? Maybe if I run an errand? Where do we draw the line. Shall I inform you that I’ve gone to refill my coffee or taken a trip to the bathroom?
Yasser Dahab on March 19th, 2007 at 9:53 am
I’m totally with you, Nick. It’s a nice use of some OSX functionality and GUI-candy, but functionally — I can’t see it finding a way into my every day life.
PXLated on March 19th, 2007 at 9:55 am
If you’re time poor you probably don’t have time for Twitter, I know I don’t. But, I did find TwitterVision somewhat mesmerizing when it launched this morning…
http://twittermap.com/twittervision
divigation on March 19th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Nick – I concur, it is entirely useless.
denny- you have it wrong, it isn’t that you aren’t important enough, it is that you aren’t self-important enough to broadcast that you are currently sitting on the toilet or that you had an egg and onion sandwich for lunch to your friends’ IM clients, email accounts and cell phones.
Jason on March 19th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Twitter… hmmm
When I first saw the Twitter site and had a little explore, after seeing some of the “features” words like, vacuous, retarded, self-absorbed, mundane, useless, fad and the like streamed thru my brain at an alarming speed.
This is a horrible waste of time and even worse doesn’t deserve this hot-topic-status, as if the Zeitgeist is driven by vacuity, and fads… (erm… forget I said that)
Seriously though, turn your back on Twitter.
georg on March 19th, 2007 at 11:50 am
You’re not alone …
Jack on March 19th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I’m on the fence when it comes to Twitter – it is mostly pointless, but for a small group of folk who don’t see each other often, it can be nice to ping each other with a little titbit of status info, a way of keeping in daily contact with no effort (cf. glancing: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2004/view/e_sess/4661glancing )
Also, everyone here is talking about it as an IM-based thing, when it’s really a mobile ‘phone-based thing, which makes it much more useful – eg. when my server goes down, I know about it wherever I am, because I get an SMS via Twitter.
Some people are having fun with the API, too, like this bloke who feeds stats from his home to Twitter: http://www.thingelstad.com/2007/03/introducing-my-robot/
Ernest Millan on March 19th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I tried Twitter for a few weeks but ultimately grew tired of it. The main reason is due to an interest in maintaining a clean separation between my online life and my “real” life. I find that Twitter keeps me “bound” to the technology even when I’m trying to avoid it.
Considering how I work in the tech industry I actually welcome the times when I am away from the “technology”. Enjoying fresh air, trees, verbal conversation, playing my guitar, a lack of stimuli (be it the Internet, TV, the media), etc. Essentially, living life.
Either way, to each his own. Some people have very valid reasons for using Twitter and I can appreciate that. As for me, it can probably remain interesting if only on a very limited basis.
Jeff on March 19th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
The people who are ranting against Twitter are interpreting its uses all too literally. Sure, you can use it to post about every fart that comes out of your ass, or you can actually post semi-meaningful content for your friends to read. And there’s no rule that you have to receive updates on your phone or in your chat client. I don’t. I check in when I feel like it. Same goes with posting.
Mikey Twit(as in TWiT, not Twitter) on March 19th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I too see no point in Twitter. I’m off IM most of the time just to get things done. The idea of always letting everyone know what I’m doing RIGHT NOW seems tedious. I personally think it’s a fad myself, but who knows.
Erik on March 19th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I tried it and found it to be a completely useless waste of time. The fad factor is high on this one, imho. At some point this may be remembered as the high point of the “connecting is always good” ethos of the Web 2.0 era.
Then again, I’ve been wrong before about new applications. I still don’t understand why there are 500 different flavors of first-person shooter games, and I haven’t yet transported my life wholesale into a MMPOG. Call me an old fogey.
Paul Westbrook on March 19th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I agree with you. I am not sure if Twitter is all that useful. The only potentially “useful” use of Twitter that I have see is integrating it with a home automatic system.
http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2007/03/twittering_your_home.html?CMP=OTC-13IV03560550&ATT=Twittering+Your+Home
Having an automatic system creating “tweets” makes the system more useful
Joshua Fryer on March 19th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Oh, there’s definitely some usefulness to Twitter. While I agree it is generally a glorified away message, that’s not really what I use it for. I added BBC, CNN, and Winecast to my friends. This means I have BBC and CNN headlines sent to my choice of IM, mobile, or both. I’m also a wino and I love to hear what others have to say about wines from around the world. By being a friend of Winecast I get other people’s tasting notes sent to me. Then I can run out and buy a bottle.
Raz on March 19th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I also thinks it’s pretty much pointless…
Writing about what I’m doing instead of doing it seems kinda stupid to me.
sedated on March 19th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I am always interested in trying new things but I am staying clear of Twitter. I definitely would be able to add content, but I am not that self-absorbed thinking that everyone needs to know my business. Also, it is the type of anti-socail stuff that I have spent awhile getting away from, including IM. It is anti-social like MySpace is in some regards. I know so many people that instead of picking up the phone to say hi, will leave a comment on their friends MySpace or Facebook page. I agree with Ernest and trying to separate my online and real world, although a lot of things that I do kinda cross mingle. Twitter and IM is the type thing that is dehumanizing a lot of people. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t always easy or even affordable to talk to people quite a distance away from you but people are using these sorts of things for people they see everyday. If you want to tell your friends what you have been up to, give them a call. It is much more engaging to hear someone laugh then to read HaHa or LOL.
Jorge Quinteros on March 19th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Thank you for this great post! Everyone indeed has been raving about how great Twitter is and while it might be, I personally see no purpose for it. If you would want to know what someone is doing, wouldn’t it be more logical to either call them or at least text them. There’s no need to make random post about your location on the web. Who cares?
Matt Murray on March 19th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
To over-generalize, I suspect there is a strong inverse correlation between interest in twitter and whether one:
- is married
- has children
- has a mortgage
- exercises regularly
- etc.
madhu on March 19th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
AFAIK u r not alone…
count me in
Thijs on March 19th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Twitter is a great way for pushing messages to your media of choice (web, phone, IM, API-driven-things). Be it news feeds, status updates of systems / websites / services or just plain and simple communication.
blogjunkie on March 19th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Alright, it’s pretty obvious that all the haters don’t like Twitter. I happen to love it. It’s like blogging without the commitment.
More importantly, Twitter plays up on human beings need to be social creatures. We like communicating and Twitter is a very easy, low-barrier way to communicate to potentially many.
mh on March 19th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
That’s it though- it’s not *great*, it’s just a usable framework for broadcasting messages to a group (or everyone) that can choose whether or not to receive them. And once received, they can *safely be ignored*. When you message someone via IM, it’s usually something that demands a response — or is interpreted by lack of response. IM status messages are great too, but inconsistently supported across IM clients.
Twitter gives the option to retrieve statuses on command. I can send the ‘get’ command via IM or SMS and see exactly what all my friends are doing on a Friday night. Or I can throw a message out for anyone who is active. Twitter is the backchannel that’s meant to be ignored at most times but has the immediacy nonetheless.
Thomas on March 19th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Reminded of a phrase of a certain SF writer “the street finds it’s own use” do I have a clue of what that will be? Doubtful, but that I said the same of RSS, delicous, and tagging. It will get there and faster than most of us suspect. But I enjoy the ponder.
LouiseM on March 20th, 2007 at 10:10 am
I haven’t found it useful myself, but I have a sneaky feeling it may be a piece of infrastructure that is waiting for a ‘killer app’ to appear to make it relevant to the rest of us.
Lifehack has some useful suggestions on how it could be used in a helpful way:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/5-ways-to-use-twitter-for-good.html
Nick Santilli on March 20th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I’m down with the home automation uses. That could be REALLY cool. But as I’m not to that level of geek yet, I’m not seeing an immediately beneficial way to integrate it into my life.
As some commented, it seems to be good if you’ve got friends who all use it – not just random people on the internets. But it’s largely dependent on your network I guess.
I agree mostly with LoiseM’s comment, that it’s probably just waiting for the right killer app to be married to it before it really shines for the masses. Guess we’ll see.
Thanks to all for sounding off here. Glad I’m not totally alone…
divigation on March 22nd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
So I had to return and apologize and retract, due to the influx of TAB forum folk that have started using it as a network, I have gotten hooked on Twitter. It works nicely, plays well with GeekTool and now I am even starting to branch beyond the TAB guys and add others. It isn’t my personal network of friends, but it is a nice way to have a particular level of communication with my geek/online friends. So I retract my earlier comment and say that clearly I was wrong about Twitter, though I make no claims to not bash the next trend without trying it out when it starts making the rounds.
chappie on March 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
I haven’t confirmed it yet because I’m waiting for my buddy to sign up, but if I understand the lingo correctly, Twitter could be used to send SMS messages to friends in Europe (through a UK number) for the cost of a local SMS to US users.
So I send “d friends_name …” to the Twitter US number (40404) and it goes directly to them (not broadcast), originating from the Twitter UK server.
Is that maybe the killer app for people with contacts in Europe? Do I win something?