Elahn versus Twitter

An article by Elahn    1 Comment

I really have been in two minds about Twitter. On one hand here is a new service that reminds me of facebook status updates but announced to anyone who cares to listen, and on the other hand a new craze that everyone I know is getting onto and putting up posts about their every mundane movement. In recent months the number of users has climbed dramatically and C-lebritites like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher got on board and made an issue of getting the most follows. In Ashton’s case he got to a million first, beating CNN. So now we can not only read about Ashton in gossip mags but now we can read every little mundane detail of Ashton’s life (woke up, kissed Demi good morning, ate egss for breakfast, killed myself…) on twitter… in 140 characters or less. Wow..thrilling.

I’ve given twitter a go, I really have and even put updates from it on my blog. I got on the bandwagon of getting as many followers as possible only to find that most who connected where actually network marketers keen on my purchasing a system that would show me how to get more followers. 9 times out of 10 this was who was following me. Their tweets were nothing interesting or personal, it was all automated crap. What was this desire from myself or indeed anyone else to know what total strangers were up to or why I would want to share my life with them?

Twitter can be useful if you have a business and/or product you want others to know about. This I can agree on. I’ve been using it to promote jokes.com.au and a new startup I’m working on with good coffee as the focus. Getting followers in this manner makes more sense because I really don’t want to have to spend 3 hours a day reading about other people’s crap. If I have something to tell 500, 1000 or even 10,000 people then this would be a great way to do it. For example – jokes.com.au post a new video clip that is sure to tickle your funny bone, then I can post a link on twitter and hope that my followers come have a look. They may even re-tweet it so their foll0wers come have a look. This sort of advertising is fantastic and I may as well make use of this craze while it lasts. Traditional ways of getting your message out there is slower and can cost money.

Twitter is being used smartly by news outlets. A journalist friend from the ABC posted updates from the recent Queensland election campaign trail. This sort of use is clever and is happening now. Twitter is also good for finding out about current trends, or what people are mostly talking about on the service. Realtime results are shown. For example, when the earthquake hit Melbourne recently people were tweeting about it well before any news announcements were made. The same has happened overseas. Feedback from television programs are also a useful tool. Gretel Colleen’s hosting of the Logies was flamed big time via twitter, valuable insight into how the audience is thinking.

But for me as a person, an individual that I am, I can’t see how what I could say about myself would be of any real interest to anyone else besides my friends and family. And isn’t that what facebook is for? And to be honest I’m getting bored of facebook also and the constant stream of stupid messages asking me to add family members to my family tree, to smile back at someone that has sent me a virtual smile or to join a group to support fallen football personalities. Delete, delete, delete.

Am I getting old and grumpy about all this or are their others of you out there who would prefer to revert to more traditional ways of communication? Social networking is good but only if it provides us with ways of doing things face to face and not just over the net and from a distance. I really don’t want to add people I haven’t seen for 20 years if they are only going to put me up on a shelf and never get in touch with. It doesn’t make sense.

If I was to cancel my facebook account tomorrow I don’t think I would die or lose touch with my circle of real friends. I’d still know when someone was having a birthday party (they would email or call me, or even post a written invite) or cared about me (they would tell me, or give me a hug and kiss in person) or had photos with me in it (they could again email me or even print them off like in the old days) or share a link to something of interest (der…email again).

How long would I last without it? Could I get over the withdrawls? Only one way to know….