UPDATE: I did sign up for Twitter, here is why.
Within the small blogging community of people whose blogs I read and also read my blog, I think I am known for having a weird blog name and for not using Twitter. The blog name is for a different blog post, but this is my long awaited, much anticipated (maybe?…probably not) post with my thoughts on Twitter. For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is go read about it HERE and HERE.
I’ve known about Twitter for a long time. In fact I almost signed up before most everyone had heard of it or used it. The first reason why I didn’t was because I didn’t think anyone would do it which would defeat its purpose. Boy was I wrong. I’ll freely admit that. I’ll also admit that one reason why I won’t use it now is because I’m stubborn and don’t like to do the thing everyone is doing (wow this is good therapy). Let me start with a list of reasons why Twitter is amazing (yes I did just write that):
- It takes full advantage of the unlimited texting plans that almost everyone has now.
- You can stay in touch friends instantaneously.
- It can save lives.
- You might find a couch to sleep on instead of being stuck in the airport.
- People can stay connected to you without using email, blogging, or a phone call.
- It is free.
That is a lot of reasons why Twitter is pretty amazing. So maybe you should be using it. Now for why I’m not using Twitter yet and won’t in the future (at least I think so).
- I’m already busy. This is easily my biggest problem with Twitter. I have seen tons of people complain about being busy, leading distracted lives, or needing to get their priorities straight…and they Twitter. Most people are probably on their phones or their computers too much already, Twitter is just another excuse to use either a phone or computer to see what someone (who they don’t know) is doing.
- Most of the time 140 characters is not enough space to say anything meaningful. People call Twitter a “micro-blog,” a fancy name for a small blog. Those same people say blogging is a place to share about your life. I think blogging is a lot more powerful than that. My point is that it takes more than 140 characters to write a blog, and it usually takes more than 140 characters to write something meaningful (obviously there are exceptions).
- Most Twitters don’t even answer the question behind the premise of it all. Twitter was started as a way for you to tell people what you’re doing. A “twit” or “tweet” is supposed to answer the question: “what are you doing?”. But most of the time Twitter is filled with conversations that say “@soandso…..” Not only are these confusing if you haven’t seen the whole conversation, but imagine how annoying it is to get text messages with these stupid conversations all day long.
- People use Twitter to follow people they don’t even know. Ragamuffin Soul is a very popular blog written by Carlos Whittaker. He has almost 2,000 followers of his Twitters. I would assume that since Twitter is supposed to be telling people what you are doing, that those people who follow Carlos on twitter would be friends of his. But I tend to think that most people who follow Carlos on his twitter only know him through his blog. Now I’m all for a blog creating community, but do 2,000 people really need to do what Carlos is doing 24/7/365…that seems like a bit much.
- The quality of blogging goes down. Twitter takes time and because no one has an endless amount of time people sacrifice blogging time for their use of Twitter. I’ve seen the power of blogging…I haven’t seen much power to Twitter as far as changing lives. I’d rather see people use that time to make their blog content better.
- I’d like to keep some level of privacy. The more popular Twitter gets the more wackos are going to start using it for their benefit. I think it is ok for people to not know what I’m doing for a few days. The people that care will call me or text me. I remember when I first got Myspace back in 2004…it was cool to connect with friends more consistently. But then it got popular and the wackos started using it to do creepy things. I’m waiting for the first news story about how something bad happened because of Twitter.
Alright a lot of you who read my blog also Twitter…
