Why? Because I read that social media has more users than Internet porn.
No, I don't have any particular interest in porn, Internet or otherwise. But I've read that, historically and currently, every new communications technology is driven by it. Something that might be beating a trend that's as old as the printing press, or older, is something that I should probably be aware of. At least a little.
So I got the Twitter account. But I still don't get Twitter. I see how it works, I see what other people are Twittering - sorry, tweeting - but I don't know what to tweet myself. I'm doing a quick pointer to my Scent Of The Day, and that's about it. Oh, and I think I once complimented a restaurant's chicken salad. If there were anything going on locally in the fried chicken realm, I'd talk about that, too.
I suppose that part of the problem is that 140 character limit. If you've been reading my blog posts, you'll know that my writing could rarely be described as concise. So while I'm reasonably comfortable blogging in paragraphs to an invisible audience in the blog, I'm less comfortable with little Haiku-length messages. What can one offer in messages like that?
You can offer pointers to other things on the web, of course. Except that I generally assume that folks who share that interest already know about whatever I'm pointing out, and folks who don't, well, don't. That's an illogical assumption, because, no, I rarely already know about the things that other people tweet about. But it still makes me hesitate.
What else? Quote Of The Day? Weather reports? Tweetku? Simultaneous TV watching? Hey, how about a Twitter-based group cooking session?
I don't know. It's a puzzle. Maybe I'll go tweet this post. That could be pleasantly circular.
Photo: By Fir0002/Flagstaffotos. Wikimedia Commons.
for me twitter is all about the follow.... when I remember to check it. I can follow favorite authors, inspirational figures, people who are blazing interesting trails, or find out where my friends are (I do that seldom)... I like twitter (when I check it) and facebook did themselves a great favor when they stole the microblog for their own similar what are your friends doing purposes.
ReplyDeleteI have been told that using tweetdeck is the only way to really get twitter becuase of the display panel. I think twitter has a little ways to go before it becomes an indispensible tool.
I suppose that the following does make more sense, except that of course following starts with somebody tweeting, and then I get all confused about the tweeting again.
ReplyDeleteYeah, somehow Facebook makes more sense to me, even though I haven't done a thing with it. Maybe it's the longer posts allowed.
Tweetdeck, huh? I'll look at that.