Why is Twitter just now the "It" thing?

musicismylife78

Hasnt it been online sine 2006? Why is it just in the last few months when EVERYONE seems to be on the damn thing?

The Juggler

what is twitter?

mca47

Me being on myspace and facebook is more than I can put up with.

milarso

I don't know why it's the it thing.
But I do know that this if effing funny.
http://twitter.com/cwalken

FinsburyParkCarrots

I started a Twitter account back in October, and within a few minutes I got an email saying "Barack Obama is now following you on Twitter". I didn't see the need to do any more with it, after getting all that validation before I'd even begun. 8-)

Who Princess

I don't use it so I'm not going to pretend I know why it's so popular. I think a lot of people got familiar with it during the presidential campaign who might not have used it before. I remember reading that during the hostage situation in Mumbai last fall a lot of people made contact through Twitter because they couldn't make phone calls so now the media seems to be using it much more.

pearljgirl2010

apparently Shaq had one and there was an article in some newspaper, and it suddenly exploded. i'm not into it... i'm a facebook kinda girl.

Sian-of-the-dead

I don't even know what it is :?

chime

I think in the UK it got more popular as Stephen Fry uses it a lot and mentions it in a lot of his interviews.

I'm not on it but I have been and read his before

redrock

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

I started a Twitter account back in October, and within a few minutes I got an email saying "Barack Obama is now following you on Twitter". I didn't see the need to do any more with it, after getting all that validation before I'd even begun. 8-)

8-)

Travelar

milarso wrote:

I don't know why it's the it thing.
But I do know that this if effing funny.
http://twitter.com/cwalken

Hahaha.... that was hilarious.

justam

It's just one more thing I'm going to ignore. I really don't have time for all these different types of networking sites. It's such a waste of time!!

DeLukin

Yea, I got started on it in early 2007. The community was small and it really wasn't that well known so it kinda flew under the radar for a while. Nowadays it's all over the media, and there are some pretty cool apps to keep you connected wherever you go (I'm addicted to a desktop twitter app called TweetDeck) so it's definitely more accessible. I'm still not sure how i feel about it - they call it a 'community' but it feels like people shouting into an empty room to me at times, and I think there is such as thing as being TOO connected. Still, every now and then something will happen to draw me back so I'd say it's pretty addictive.

libragirl

I guess because all of the celebrities are using it now. I don't know , until a month ago I never knew it existed:P

Who Princess

I think TOO connected is absolutely a good way of describing it.

xavier mcdaniel

pearljgirl2010 wrote:

apparently Shaq had one and there was an article in some newspaper, and it suddenly exploded. i'm not into it... i'm a facebook kinda girl.

That was actually pretty funny as most things from Shaq are. That being said, I'm a facebook kind of guy. More than two status updates per day is a little excessive, which is what Twitter is in my opinion.

DeLukin

Speaking of Twitter, I just saw this:

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/i ... tter-slam/

A war of "tweets" between Chris Cornell and Trent Reznor...

ledvedderman

I still don't understand what Twitter is

aNiMaL

Twitter has got to be the dumbest thing ever.

iluvcats

doesn't twitter interface with Facebook? you type a line like what you are up to from your phone and all your facebook friends can see what you are doing (ready to take a dump, giving the dog a bath, etc.)

I feel stalked on reunion.com. they send spy reports and tell you who looks at your profile.
this man has me confused with somebody else and typed a message to me yesterday. let's say my name is posted as Betty Boop on there. He wrote a strange name in the subject (which google told me is a street) and he wrote in the email, "hello P.B. Boop." I replied to him that I don't know what the subject line is and that is not me. I did not understand the extra initial he put in front of my name! I changed my age to be like 70 yrs old.
I'm deleting the account soon but it is inconvenient b/c I have to call to do it.

do any of you guys ever feel that these fun things we are doing like texting, emailing or blogging is like work?

DeLukin

Yea, it definitely feels like work sometimes. Part of my job is to understand how new technologies can work in higher ed so I get to play with them and call it 'work.' But to answer the question, "What is Twitter" I guess it could be described as micro-blogging. You set up an account and talk about really anything you want in short posts called Tweets. Tweets are constrained to 140 characters, so it forces you to be concise. You can follow other people's Tweets and they can follow you and before you know it you have a community of people who are following each other. I've found it to be a great way to ask questions, point to cool content that I've seen, or just be funny and irrelevant. It's actually a great way to keep in touch with people who work in different departments or outside of my place of employment. It's not as formal as an email and reaches more people than IM and is just really fun to do. If you haven't tried it, set up an account and follow pearl jam's tweets. It's definitely an interesting social media experiment...