Twitter Is Dumb, But I’m Stupid
Last week when I was at SXSW one of the hottest technologies to use was Twitter. It seemed like everyone was updating their current activities through Twitter to let all their “friends” be aware of what is going on with them. It seems like it has become a success, but there were some entries sprinkled around the web talking about the demise of Twitter, which as we know always happens when anything starts to become remotely successful.
Now I don’t use Twitter and to be honest I believed it was the dumbest idea in a while, but that never means it won’t work well. When creating a product for the Web 2.0 world what many people tend to forget is fulfilling human needs. Not practical needs like Basecamp could fulfill, but our deep down ego-filled needs.
Twitter is for the attention economy that we live in today. There are some of us (hell most of us) who love attention. I don’t mean Kevin Rose in your face Digg attention, but we like to know that people want to see what is going on with our lives. We like to know that people read our blogs and comment because talking to ourselves only made sense in 1996. Twitter doesn’t have to be practical, it just has to allow people into our lives enough to satisfy their nosy wishes.
Twitter then becomes our personal paparazzi. Have you ever just called up a person or hit them up on IM and asked what they are up to? Well because of Twitter you already know what they are up to and you can move the conversation to that avoiding that question altogether. But again, we don’t see how Twitter is practical for anyone so we shun it, laugh at it and pretend that we didn’t think of something so simple.
Imagine Twitter in the hands of Paris Hilton (okay maybe not the best example). How many people would subscribe to her Twitter feed vs. a blog feed? Celebrities could control their own gossip. Don’t think you can create something powerful with such a simple tool? Well I actually had an example of something getting blown up out of proportion because of how someone worded their Twitter message. The message was simple, but the effects were amazing:
is amused that Scrivs is wearing my clothing around his head about
This little message caused a large number of people to come up with many, many different scenarios of what happened that night. Quite simply I had a woman’s scarf wrapped around my head, but reading that message and other messages around it you could imagine what kind of stuff people could come up with. A simple tool, with powerful effects and the fact that people feed into it shows me that Twitter does things that most sites could only wish to do.
We love attention and we are nosy people, that is why I think Twitter will work.
It will work, but I don’t think it will work for me.
I pretty much avoid using cellphones, email, and instant messenger for all the same reason — I hate being interrupted when I’m doing something — or rather, I like to be in control of my interruptions (”I’m going to check email now”, “I’m going to check RSS now”).
I really liked the Creating Passionate User posts on how Twitter could be a horrible source of interruption.
By engtech on March 20, 2007 3:39 pm
Honestly why does the world need to know what I’m doing? Who knew big brother would be voluntary?
By Levi on March 20, 2007 6:48 pm
Y’know, back in the day questions such as “wuz up?” and “how’s it goin’?” were usually met with a shurugged off like “nuthin’” or some variation of coming off as sounding super busy.
It’s generally understood that neither that askee nor the asker of these type questions are wanting a dissertation as a response. In fact, to give one even a pseudo-lengthy response (say the equivalent of 140 characters) is somewhat rude.
If my friends were to enlighten me with there every thought or plan (even online) well, I can honestly say that friendship would be strained in no time — even when I do generally care what’s going on in their life in the big picture.
I can see this maintaining popularity with kids during that period of their lives when they are just annoying as hell anyway (what 6 - 12?). After that, then responsibilities will kick in, and Twittering will kick off.
Other than that, attention seekers will brag (or wish) that someone else had their panties wrapped around the face of someone else. But then again, most attention seekers fit within that same box as the annoying kids.
I see it lasting for a little while, that is until the next wave of attention seeking, prepubescent pantie wads come up with something else to fill their void of fulfillment.
By Mark on March 20, 2007 7:30 pm
Well of course nothing lasts forever, but what you describe is happening with people our own age. Who would want to use myspace? Who would want to post stupid videos of themselves on YouTube? Obviously a lot of people and who would love to be the voyeur in other people’s lives…obviously even more people.
By Scrivs on March 20, 2007 7:45 pm
[...] “Twitter is dumb, but will work, because we are nosy“. It would also help if they got their technical problems sorted out. [...]
By V7N Search Marketing News » Blog Archive » Daily Search Blog Roundup, March 21, 2007 on March 20, 2007 7:47 pm
Yeh, but MySpace and YouTube have context attached which is missing with Twitter. Even Flickr has more context from which a true friendship or online acquaintance can be built.
I dont have a MySpace account, and I only have one video posted on YouTube.
But I guarantee you, you’d know more about my experiences and sense of loss from that one video, without my saying a word about it, then if I “live twittered” the whole experience.
There’s no context with Twitter — or at least it shallow context. Shallow context builds shallow relationships. Shallow relationships ultimately fail.
By Mark on March 20, 2007 8:01 pm
Wonder if a tweet would be admissible in court… could build a nice alibi…
By Robert Bruce on March 20, 2007 8:06 pm
I don’t really understand why I think Twitter is fun, but my interest seems to wax and wane. Sometimes I enjoy it for the communication possibilities, other times it’s just fun to see messages from other people. I’m sure I’ll burn out on it soon enough but, in the meantime, who cares?
By Brian Gilham on March 20, 2007 9:21 pm
I gave it a whirl and dropped it like a hot potato again two days later. It’s stupid.
I already have enough people in front of me in the supermarket talking to their spouses or friends on the cell phone, telling them that they are … err … shopping. Great news.
I don’t really need my PC spammed by people telling me they’re on the toilet, have just taken a shower or intend to sleep another hour.
In an age of information overload we don’t really need even more useless information in our daily lives. I, for one, have canned my cell phone, keep my PC off for the most part of the day and go outside.
With Twitter and other online activities growing exponentially, I’m sometimes surprised though that anyone is actually still outside.
By Volkher Hofmann on March 21, 2007 12:26 am
Maybe I’m just old, busy, and grouchy, but who has time for this kind of thing?
By Beerzie Boy on March 21, 2007 9:55 am
[...] Would you be surprised to receive a text message from Paris Hilton? If Hollywood PR agencies read the latest from Scrivs, it could happen: Imagine Twitter in the hands of Paris Hilton (okay maybe not the best example). How many people would subscribe to her Twitter feed vs. a blog feed? Celebrities could control their own gossip. Don’t think you can create something powerful with such a simple tool? [...]
By release - » Cell Phones, Terrorism, and Paris Hilton on March 21, 2007 10:58 am
My name is Patrick Haney, and I am a twitterholic.
I’m also laughing over here thinking about the chain of events that lead up to that twitter and what happened after that thing was on your head. Good times…
By Patrick Haney on March 21, 2007 10:59 am
I hope nothing got you into trouble… but it was very funny. :D
By Jina Bolton on March 21, 2007 11:16 am
I think we typically IM someone asking them what’s up because we want a back and forth interaction - not a single response of “I’m out of peanut butter”.
Twitter is basically the equivalent of an IM away message…a quick, dumb message about something that might be marginally funny, but isn’t funny once you are reading 100 of them a day. I can’t see it lasting. Would anyone really subscribe to Paris Hilton’s Twitter feed of “I’m out of peanut butter”? That’d be fun for about a day. Are we all on such a short attention span, we can’t be bothered to read (or write) something as long as a blog post?
What was I talking about again?
By p auL on March 21, 2007 1:12 pm
Facebook did something very similar to this first with their “status updates.” I thought it was an alright concept, something you might update a few times a year. Alex is on vacation! Alex is in China. Etc.
I don’t think it’s at all valuable, but definitely see how it will appeal to the myspace crowd.
By Alex on March 21, 2007 3:50 pm
I found twitter to be pretty useless.. it’s like a personal mini blog!
By ilker on March 21, 2007 4:53 pm
What is the long term value? We’re all pointing at that it is pointless accomplishing nothing more than informing others of what I’m up to, but what is the potential? Sure its dumb but translate that to Mobile devices (when it works) and perhaps you have a way to inject ads based on what people are doing to an interested audience (through mobile being curious what people are doing as they are more likely to join you).
By Paul on March 21, 2007 10:53 pm
That was a very long lead-up just to boast about wearing women’s clothing, Scrivs. :D
By Jack on March 22, 2007 1:32 am
Twitter is speaks volumes about the digital culture that we live in and how it is effecting our social practices. Sometimes I wonder if we will look back and laugh at how self-important we all were.
By dj on March 22, 2007 7:50 am
There’s no way I could use twitter. However, I agree with you - there’s something priceless when it comes to human attention. Oh well, it’s not the first webapp I thought was dumb, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
By Ryan on March 22, 2007 3:48 pm
[...] Twitter Is Dumb, But I’m Stupid [...]
By google - Google Search on March 22, 2007 7:10 pm
I seriously considered using Twitter. For about 8 minutes. Really. Then I came to my senses.
Who freaking CARES if I’m on my way to work, or making a ham sandwich, or on the pot? I certainly don’t give a rat’s behind what you’re doing on that level.
I’m one of those folks without a cell phone, who fires up his IM for specific people at specific times and reads a lot of blogs. That’s interconnectivity enough for me, thanks.
By Ghosty on March 25, 2007 11:48 am
I wrote a full opinionated review of Twitter on my blog. I’m not sure that I see the value in it.
Looking at the flow of postings on Twitter.com, I am wondering what it is that makes this site so popular? Some users are finding it totally addictive and like much on the net it can be addictive, until the fad wears off and something new pops up.
By Rose on March 26, 2007 2:18 pm
[...] Scrivs weighs in on blogging by the second with Twitter. A blog post or three a day just isn’t enough if you want to be famous for being famous. [...]
By Smart Topics Around The Web - Zoomstart on March 26, 2007 11:26 pm
not super impressed with twitter, the UI kinda bites and it seems really pointless unless you manage to drag all your friends on there to join in your pointless status updating. it’s all very self-involved - I really have no desire to see what everyone is up to that much, and I don’t feel the need to broadcast my every activity while I’m working, either. why does anyone care?
anyhow, facebook already does the same thing, better, and less obtrusively. I’ll stick with that.
By nick on March 30, 2007 3:19 pm