Rambling about Twitter

It feels like Twitter is really starting to make some headway. Which is awesome. It’s great to see a new twist (rather than simply new features) on the underlying concept of Blogging. I’m completely fascinated by it. And yet I don’t use it.

This can be attributed to a couple of reasons:

1. I’m not a phone person. I don’t like talking on them. Nor do I like sending messages through them. This is a result of a rather fuzzy mix of disconnect (from the person you are communicating with), interruption (receiving of and fear of causing), and the generally piss poor state of interaction design in most (if not all) cell phones.
2. I increasingly feel the desire to use technology as a means to possess any given moment generally detracts from it by a) removing ones self from that moment and/or b) decreasing the perceived need to reflect upon that moment.
3. I know folks who are prone to bad Twitter manners – Such as sending and receiving in the midst of a face to face conversation. That’s not something I’d like to encourage through participation.

Clearly I’m a weirdo. Numbers 1 & 3 have nothing at all to do with the product. Number 2 is, at best, merely an esoteric starting point for a feature request.

They do have something in common though. They all revolve around the way I interact with people and my environment. That’s where the fascination comes from…

Twitter is disruptive. Using it (or choosing not to) forces a consideration of things social. To varying degrees you have to re-consider rules and assumptions.

Maybe they change… Maybe they don’t…

This is not unlike the early days of Blogging (or if you want to get all semi-useful semi-cheeky anti-fashion fashionable about it: Blogging 1.0). The re-considering that was caused then left us with little consensus. Instead we have a bunch of related yet often conflicting opinions.

I hope the same holds true for Twitter (and the sure to come offshoots, expansions, and copies). Having it figured out is boring. But the process of figuring out is infinitely interesting*.

* Not coincidentally, that’s also what Blogging is. Put your fingers in your ears when over defined labels like journaling, publishing, cataloging, scrapbooking, reporting, and so forth and so on try to tell you otherwise.