I have written before about my inability to love Twitter. I know it's easy for some, just not for me. I'm still trying---I even made my feed public in an effort to embrace the whole experience.
I still don't like Twitter. To me is a walled garden filled with the daily intricacies of the lives of other people. I know, I know, it isn't a walled garden-- it is a dynamic, open environment where users share links, information and more. Yes, it is a walled garden. That guy was wrong. Its' social environment neatly captures and in some respects, almost fully reproduces the atmospheres of older, enclosed online places, like BBS systems. Once you've been on Twitter a bit, you realize that it really isn't (for most users, at least) about the microblogging. It's about the @posts--the posts written in response to other Twitter users. It's about the user's personal Twitter community.
Almost twenty years ago I followed ISCABBS--a nice walled garden encased in a telnet-based BBS system. Everyone on there had aliases. Sound familiar? (Mine was Nubbin--named after the snack food chronicled in Henry Alford's Municipal Bondage, if you must know.) Most of the people on there knew each other--it was a primarily local network. (Also sound familiar?) Even though I lived in the same town, I didn't know anyone on ISCABBS. It was interesting to me.
I lurked on ISCABBS. It was hard to post on there myself. After reading Disruptive Conversation's post on walled gardens, I realized that I have an old problem in a new environment. What was ISCABBS, The Well, Xcaliber, Compuserve, AOL, et al (loved that Virginia Heffernan article on Xcaliber) is now Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc... Walled gardens once ruled the Internets, were broken down, and are here once again Twitter may not be a walled garden in that its data is available to users outside of Twitter (most specifically, on Google). Twitter's community intelligence and social benefits, however, resemble those found in contained online environments. I now know it isn't just Twitter--I have felt this way almost twenty years. Boy, do I feel older than ever.
I have been trying to make myself embrace Twitter because "it's changing how people communicate." It's "the next big thing." (Are students using it? My impression: not so much.) The truth, of course, is what's old is new again.
I still don't like Twitter. To me is a walled garden filled with the daily intricacies of the lives of other people. I know, I know, it isn't a walled garden-- it is a dynamic, open environment where users share links, information and more. Yes, it is a walled garden. That guy was wrong. Its' social environment neatly captures and in some respects, almost fully reproduces the atmospheres of older, enclosed online places, like BBS systems. Once you've been on Twitter a bit, you realize that it really isn't (for most users, at least) about the microblogging. It's about the @posts--the posts written in response to other Twitter users. It's about the user's personal Twitter community.
Almost twenty years ago I followed ISCABBS--a nice walled garden encased in a telnet-based BBS system. Everyone on there had aliases. Sound familiar? (Mine was Nubbin--named after the snack food chronicled in Henry Alford's Municipal Bondage, if you must know.) Most of the people on there knew each other--it was a primarily local network. (Also sound familiar?) Even though I lived in the same town, I didn't know anyone on ISCABBS. It was interesting to me.
I lurked on ISCABBS. It was hard to post on there myself. After reading Disruptive Conversation's post on walled gardens, I realized that I have an old problem in a new environment. What was ISCABBS, The Well, Xcaliber, Compuserve, AOL, et al (loved that Virginia Heffernan article on Xcaliber) is now Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc... Walled gardens once ruled the Internets, were broken down, and are here once again Twitter may not be a walled garden in that its data is available to users outside of Twitter (most specifically, on Google). Twitter's community intelligence and social benefits, however, resemble those found in contained online environments. I now know it isn't just Twitter--I have felt this way almost twenty years. Boy, do I feel older than ever.
I have been trying to make myself embrace Twitter because "it's changing how people communicate." It's "the next big thing." (Are students using it? My impression: not so much.) The truth, of course, is what's old is new again.
I don't get the sense that Twitter is really "changing how people communicate" - far too many people have tried it and dropped it or have used it selectively (eg, when at a conference trying to meet with a group of people). IMVHO, Twitter is for self-important twits who really believe that their 140 word musings are so important that they need to be blasted into the ether for everyone; for me, if I have thoughts that are for the masses, I'll blog 'em (or comment on someone else's blog).
Maybe you're right and that is why "old people" like and use it!
That said, I did follow some conference I couldn't attend on Twitter and it was much easier (read "shorter") than a metablog of people blogging the conference
I think you're right! While I was writing this post, I came upon this: Is Twitter the Facebook for Fogeys?