Twitter... really? WHY?

[JupiterPaladin]

So I'm sure you've all been exposed to Twitter or at least heard people mention it 50 million times. Is it just me or is Twitter just another pointless "look at me on teh interwebz" fad? I checked about a dozen Twitter pages and they just seem to be a very unattractive blog. Did I miss something? Who else agrees?

[Vespe Ratavo]

I never really understood it, but I suppose it does hold some certain appeal; imagine getting some incredibly witty little thing into your head that cannot possibly wait until you get to a computer to put it on the interblags. But you have your cell phone.

True, it's not very substantial on its own, but it could be useful.

[Amiria]

What's Twitter ? Should I count my self lucky that I don't know ?

[KnightDisciple]

Didn't some guy get word out he had been taken to prison in a foreign country with twitter, or something to that affect?

[JupiterPaladin]

It looks like a crappy little blog you can access with a Blackberry or whatever cell phone... :smallyuk:

[bosssmiley]

What's Twitter ? Should I count my self lucky that I don't know ?

Twitter is 'micro-blogging' apparently: tiny bite-sized segments of user-generated inconsequentia sent to one's phone or desk-top.

*glares through monocle, harrumphs disapprovingly, rustles Torygraph*

declaration of interest: I do have a twitter acct. I use it to follow several authors and bloggers whose work I enjoy. Signal/noise ratio is usually ok, except for Warren Ellis when he has his class clown head on (about half the time). :smallannoyed:

[valadil]

I have a twitter account. I didn't understand its purpose till I got one myself. Now it makes sense. Here's what I like about twitter:

It's like facebook status updates without groups, applications, and ninjabunnies spamming you.

It helps filter LJ content. By which I mean there are people on LiveJournal who make tiny little useless posts several thousand times a day. Get them a twitter account and your LJ friends page becomes cleaner.

It's somewhere to post random little tidbits. When I'm at work I read a lot of news sites and invariably want to share them with people. I used to send them to people on AIM, but I didn't want to inundate any one person with lolcats. Now I dump them on twitter. My friends do the same too.

If you think of twitter as a blog it seems really gimpy. You're limited to 160 characters per post. Don't think of it as a blog, think of it as a public chat. It's not really chat either, but I think it's closer to chat than to a blog because of how it equalizes comments and posts instead of making comments a child of a post.

[paddyfool]

I don't generally use it, but I do keep getting drawn back by www.twitter.com/othar (if you don't understand it, first read the Girl Genius webcomic at www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php).

[chiasaur11]

Plus, Jhonen Vasquez's twitter page is one of the most disturbing things ever.

[skywalker]

Didn't some guy get word out he had been taken to prison in a foreign country with twitter, or something to that affect?

Yes, from wikipedia:
Twitter has been used as a "social justice tool" to connect groups of people in critical situations. On April 10 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at UC Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. On his way to the police station, Buck used his mobile phone to send the message “Arrested” to his 48 "followers" on Twitter. Those contacted UC Berkeley, the US Embassy in Cairo and a number of press organizations on his behalf. While being detained, Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his "followers". As a result of the message and the efforts of his Twitter friends[dubious – discuss], he was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.

I like twitter because it helps me keep in touch with old high school friends, well, only one right now, but we always were the early adopters. But since he moved to California and is going to BC in Boston, it would be nearly impossible to keep up with him, especially since neither of us really does the whole facebook thing. But with twitter, I get updates he occasionally finds interesting to post, and he gets the same from me.

It also tells me about certain politicians' campaigns. Since I have unlimited text messaging, it's a pretty good deal.

[Tom_Violence]

No one mentioned this (http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080423.jpg) yet? Honestly, its the only thing I can think of using it for.

[ghost_warlock]

No one mentioned this (http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080423.jpg) yet? Honestly, its the only thing I can think of using it for.

Really, you can do that with a text message just as well.

Not that I'd know from experience or anything...

*wanders off whistling*