Twitter – is this the beginning of the TMI end?
So you’re totally hooked on Facebook and keep updating your status so EVERYONE knows you had a fight with your boss. You’re still being nagged to join Bebo, your MySpace has been neglected, your Skype phone keeps ringing, Flixster keeps sending you irritating reminder emails. Now your sms beep is getting really annoying and you leave your phone on silent as much as possible, you haven’t cleaned out your inbox in a month, procrastination is becoming a scary enemy, your rss feed is unread, you haven’t visited your favourite site in ages. Sound Familiar? Still want more? Meet Twitter, the beginning of the end of TMI – too much information. The clutter of the information superhighway looms all around you.
It’s really simple, Twitter asks one question only: “What are you doing” and your job is to tell everyone (well your friends and anyone else interested in your woolies take away sandwich lunch) exactly what that is. Now I know at first I was reluctant to update my Facebook status too often for fear of pushing my boring life onto all my poor Facebook friends – however, getting their updates was really comforting and somehow has brought me closer to so many people who I just don’t seem to have time to catch up with in the ‘real world.’ Now I know that A loves cooking, P is a real joker, K and I think similarly and S is as skeptical as ever… I also know that G keeps bunking work 😉
So now I don’t mind letting them know what I’m up to and I keep checking to see what they’re doing. As sick as it sounds, I feel closer to my people than ever. Which leads us to Twitter. It takes that ‘status’ updating notion and formalises it into constant status updating via your computer or cell phone. So you tell people all day exactly what you’re up to. Mhhhm… sounds a bit big brother non?
Twitter is sweeping through the States and the UK much like Facebook is sweeping us up right now and people are using it for all kinds of weird reasons. We’ve just signed up so we can see if it works in SA and if it truly is the beginning of our TMI breakdown and information overkill. We’ll let you know. Wonder if we could find a better use for it like a crime-fighting initiative? Anyone else know more about it?
The Wall Street journal explains in simple terms: Twitter allows members to use their computers or cellphones to distribute short messages on what they’re doing. Each message is limited to 140 characters, but there are no limits on how many messages a user can send. Members specify whether they want to be alerted by a text message on their phones or an instant message on their PCs when friends post updates.
Like most social-networking sites, once a person opens a Twitter account they can invite their friends to join or connect with existing members. Each member gets a personal Web page that logs all their posts. Some members limit their networks to a handful of friends while others sign up to receive instant updates from dozens of members.
These services elicit mixed feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been their early adopters. Fans say they are a good way to keep in touch with busy friends. But some users are starting to feel “too” connected, as they grapple with check-in messages at odd hours, higher cellphone bills and the need to tell acquaintances to stop announcing what they’re having for dinner.
“I probably started removing people the first week,” said Ryan Irelan, 31, a Web developer in Raleigh, N.C., who began using Twitter last year. “This constant dinging of updates,” he added, “it really just became totally overwhelming. I don’t see how anyone could get anything done.”
