January 16, 2008

My top 10 for Twitter


My Twitter chronology:
- It's early 2007. I don't get what all the hype is about. "Twitter is only for self-obsessed geeks"
- August 2007. I sign up. Might as well try it if it's survived this long. Now what do I do?
- November 2007. This is cool. Have 5 followers, don't have the faintest idea how they found me.
-December 2007 @LeWeb3. Meet serial twitterers and see them in action. Start to see the light.
-January 2008. I'm hooked. Here's why:

10. Procrastinating: Twitter's a wonderful way to pass the time when I want to avoid a task.
9. Blog traffic: I got over 100 visits in 3 hours thanks to a twitter by @LoicLeMeur (not that it has happened again since :-)
8. Diversity: I can "create my own village"
7. No pressure: Watch, listen, learn. No pressure to speak out, show up, bump into.
6. Garbage Can: Second thoughts? That's okay. Delete.
5. Style in 140 chars: If WW2 Allied radio operators could "see" who was behind the German transmissions just by "reading" the pulse and style of their morse code transmissions, I can surely get to know people in 140-character bursts of personality
4. No "fun walls."
3. The mental challenge of being concise. Of building a style, consciously or otherwise.
2. Great blog posts and great bloggers I wouldn't have otherwise gotten to know.
And my top top reason:
1. A weird sense of community. For Frozen Peas. For Ashley . For causes. For news. For something beyond the egocentric, narcisisstic tweets that I initially throught were the achilles heal of the app.

Let's meet. @creativivi

3 comments:

Bernard (ben) Tremblay said...

"If WW2 Allied radio operators could "see" who was behind the German transmissions just by ..."
Thank you!
FWIW that didn't end in the 40s. or 50s. or 60s. In the early 70s I could almost tell ... awwwww shucks, I really can't get into details. Dang.

But thanks for humanizing communications! It's true ... we're very sensitive to the subtle details of communicative gestures ... the "phatic" aspects, the prosidy. (We used that term in ethology, go figure ... foxes and wolves are ever-sensitive while we dumb down. There's likely an irony in there but I'm distracted ATM.)

cheers
--bentrem

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog, Vivi

Would you be interested in exchanging links? My blog is on creative thinking, media, film, books and travel.

Eamon - eamon1972@hotmail.co.uk

cryptonomico said...

I too caught the part about the WWII operators. I just started blogging and have been looking at others with similar tags. I found yours under 'cognitive theory'.
I love the image of people sensing the humanity behind something so seemingly mechanical. Are you interested in that, or were you being particularly historical or something? You cought my imagination. I think I have a 'meme' in my mind.
Neal Stephenson has a book about WWII and cryptography. I wonder if you have read it.