Tweet, Tweet… when does the Twitter-ing cease?
In general, I have no qualms with Twitter. It’s a great service (when it’s up and running). I am, however, fed up with the never ending ancillary Twitter services, aggregators, and bandwagon apps…
There are benefits to the public at large reporting what’s going on in their lives, even reporting the news, and being first on the scene to take photographs, but mostly… it’s just NOISE.
As the above graphic shows, the time spent between interruptions continues to decline. As we continue to push to stay up to date, we are getting less and less accomplished.
Linda Stone was quoted as saying:
“To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.
We pay continuous partial attention in an effort NOT TO MISS ANYTHING. It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis. We are always in high alert when we pay continuous partial attention. This artificial sense of constant crisis is more typical of continuous partial attention than it is of multi-tasking.”
In an era where we’re so desperate not to miss anything, we’re missing the big picture. Twitter will continue to be a vehicle for the passage of knowledge, but as the site progresses I see it tweaked, refined, and culled, so that the information provided is relevant and useful…. Not that Joe Schmo has the flu.
Someday we’ll look back at Twitter as the Message Board of it’s day. Twitter gets us all involved, but for now it’s TOO LOUD! For now, there’s no ancillary site that turns down the volume enough for me to tune in.
So what does the future of Twitter look like? There are hundreds of possibilities, but until we get there… please turn down the noise. I’ve got work to do.
* * * UPDATE * * * It Gets WORSE! Twitter is going to a “Live Stream” by Q1 2009.
One Response to “Tweet, Tweet… when does the Twitter-ing cease?”
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I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon early, and then a few months ago, I opted out. The best thing about Twitter (for me) was that it made the sound of a bird chirping every time I opened the app on my iPhone. Beyond that, it seemed silly & pointless. How much can I really say with only 160 characters? And how would I make my “tweets” different from what I post as a “status update” on Facebook? Most of the people on there posted about how drunk they were, or began a tweet with the word “totally” (“Totally listening to Britney Spears with the windows down!” “Totally D-RUNK at the club tonight!!!1111″) That’s not exactly compelling information, but then again I’m old for Twitter (26).
I don’t think the future of Twitter looks too bright simply because there’s only one feature- and its a feature you can do on Facebook or MySpace, so what’s the point? They’re going to have to come up with some newer, more shiny ways to “micro-blog” if they want to stay relevant. The social networking world moves quick, and most folks get bored fast. Hopefully they are planning some new stuff. Otherwise I’m afraid they will be retired to the “hey- remember TWITTER?” category.