The Twitter Tumble (or, Is This Thing On?)
By Tom Chandler on May 20, 2008 in Personal, Writing
[Update: Amusingly, Twitter's been very unhappy since I posted this, and suggesting it's in the midst of a meltdown wouldn't be out of line...]
You can’t help but hear the drumbeats about Twitter. Depending on who’s talking, it’s either a colossal waste of time, or humanity’s last, greatest hope.
I’ve used Twitter for months now as a simple micro-blogging sidebar on my Trout Underground fly fishing blog. In that relatively undemanding capacity (and helped along by Alex King’s excellent Twitter Tools), it worked fine, though hardly perfectly.
Recently I tumbled for a personal Twitter account to see about all the fuss.
Well, I tried to see.
Seems like the service is down a lot. In fact, as I write this — having just shipped a messaging platform advocating a radical repositioning of a client’s product (something I was willing to crow about) — I can’t log on.
Can’t tweet. Can’t do anything. (I wrote this yesterday. Today — right now — we seem to be experiencing another temporary outage).
While not everything about Twitter is trivial, it’s clear that most tweets aren’t exactly life-changing, which is precisely why the service needs to work flawlessly.
The Experiment Continues
Still, I’m going to continue the Twitter experiment.
You can find me there hiding behind a ChandlerWrites address.
I invite you to follow along, and I promise not to clog the pipelines with “shorts or sweatpants?” subject matter.
After all, I initially “followed” a lot of people in an attempt to quickly gain perspective. And the noise level was… high. Too high.
I find Twitter an interesting idea. Perhaps once I’m following the right people, the light bulb will come on. And regardless of of whether it sticks, you have to do these things to speak about them with your clients.
Still, Twitter feels more like a proof of concept — a proving ground for something better that has yet to evolve.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
Technorati Tags: twitter,tweets,copywriting
I use twitter mostly as a way to kill time. There are some other bloggers which I have gotten to know better because of twitter.
I, too, have had to un-follow users because I felt like I was in a chat room in the early 90s with a bunch of junior high schoolers.
BTW - Love your posts!
Daniel De Guia | May 20, 2008 | Reply
Daniel: Thanks for the kind words. As for killing time, there seems to be no shortage of ways to do that on the Internet (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc).
Given that I have more things to do than time to kill, I’m wondering how much of it is worth the effort. We’ll see.
Tom Chandler | May 20, 2008 | Reply
Twitter is a great way to get a fast fix of people, conversation and break the isolation of freelancing. I don’t sit on there and drop links to my own posts or those of my friends unless I or they really deserve it. I don’t say things that are boring or stupid.
I go there, hang out, have fun, talk up a storm for ten minutes… sometimes more… and then boom, I’m gone.
It’s great to hear, “JAMES!” when I come on and it’s great to know that I’ve always got a place to go when I need a break.
And while I’m there, I goof off, have fun, keep the convo valuable (I hope, as much as goofing off can be valuable) and generally try to have a good time. Seems to be working :)
Followed, Tom. Hope to see you around… When the damned thing works well, that is.
James Chartrand - Men with Pens | May 20, 2008 | Reply
Hey Tom,
Just joined Twitter myself, if only to enter Copyblogger’s short (short) story contest.
It seems to me that Twitter is much like the Facebook “What are you doing right now?” feature. Since I update that once every four or five months, I don’t think I’d be very good at Twittering.
After reading James’s response, it sounds more like a chat-room feel. Or a long episode of Cheers… Either way, I can see how it would break up the solitude of writing.
But I think ultimately you are right Tom. It’s a foreshadowing of some Social Web 3.0 killer app yet to come.
~Graham
Graham Strong | May 21, 2008 | Reply
Hey Tom, looks like we’re all having a Twitter SOMETHING-PITHY-fest. Like you, I’m still feeling my way along the Twit-path.
Roberta Rosenberg | May 21, 2008 | Reply
I’m with Graham, I only joined this Twitter stuff to enter CopyBlogger’s comp.
Personally I think it’s a load of crap.
But hey, each to their own! ;)
Sarah McIver | May 21, 2008 | Reply
I’m still waiting to see what twitter comes to mean to me. Which could be very little, though one caveat is important; it has been useful as a micro-blogging tool on my fly fishing blog — a quick & easy way to run a lot of interesting-yet-second-tier links through my already packed blog.
Still, I discourage people from following me at that address as I’m not having a conversation, just moving links.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Tom Chandler | May 21, 2008 | Reply
Tom,
I am curious - if youhave been using twitter as a web-based tool. Have you seen or used Zoho (www.zoho.com)?
Phil Harris | May 29, 2008 | Reply
Phil: Good timing on your question. I’m going to write a couple small articles about free/online software for my wife’s economic development nonprofit.
They’re oriented to microenterprise, and these new tools offer a lot. I’ve played with Zoho just a bit, and find I like it a bit better than Google Docs.
It won’t serve as a replacement for a local word processor, but it’s all pretty damned interesting.
Tom Chandler | May 30, 2008 | Reply