I Said I Wouldn’t Twitter, Then I Twittered

I too fell victim to such temptations. First, myspace, then facebook, and now twitter. While I find legitimate uses out of myspace and facebook i.e.: finding long-lost friends, streamlined method of staying in touch with friends and family out of state and out of the country. However, I fail to see a legitimate use of twitter. I see uses for blogs etc…But micro-blogging? Do I really care if someone is stuck in traffic? I still fail to see a reasonable excuse to use twitter. Now I need to get off of here and tweet about this blog.

The weird thing is that your Facebook status allows more characters than a Tweet. It must be the pretty colors.

See, twitter is different from facebook and myspace because it doesn’t matter at all who you are… you are right, no one cares about if you are stuck in traffic. What becomes interesting is when 20 people are stuck in the same traffic, and it’s becoming easy to search for that kind of thing. #amazonfail is another example… People twittering after a plane crash… The genius of it all is sticking your head into a river of constant data from all across the world. What kind of nerd doesn’t want to feel like Ozymandias did while he watched 50 TVs at once?
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And Lev, when I saw all the other time.communists (yes, I totally stole that from JP) join up I knew you were screwed. I hope you end up liking it more than you think.

true. Mumbai is another example of twitter being useful, however, the sense that the populous is becoming so narsassitic to document every minute detail and plaster it to the world. Mumabi and the Hudson plane crash are the exceptions.

I don’t get why people have this weird aversion to Twitter. People *blogging* about how they don’t like Twitter will get two hits from my Iron Mallet of Irony.
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Suggested people for Lev to follow: @ronaldmoore @gaiusbaltar @Tom_Zarek @ centurion0110

People that actually twitter about every minute detail do not get followed. Really, any more than 5 in a day and it has to be something pretty interesting or it’s just taking up space. A common misconception is that people really post “I’m eating a PB&J sandwich.” Sure, a few people do that, but no one is reading it. It’s not really the point.
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But Maureen Dowd summed up the opposite of twitter better than I ever could. She loses 2 cool points.

I read some interesting things (I think out of a CNN article) about the instant reporting about Columbine. For the first time in a major news story, there were eye witnesses giving reports via cell phone as events were happening or immediately afterward. The result was poor reporting and a LOT of misinformation that’s accepted as the historical record of events.
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Not that I’m saying that having more people reporting quicker is a bad thing, but in our must-have-details-now era, it puts the responsibility of journalistic integrity even more so on reporters and editors.

@Dave, but the misinformation was, for the most part, the result of the same old ‘journalism.’ If anything, a faster cycle gives ‘journalists’ less time for ‘journalism.’
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We’ll have to come up with a word for this new breed that ‘reports’ on events. Wait, it’s on the tip of my tongue…

I am not hostile towards twitter myself; I in fact just started twitter, but I just don’t care if Aston Kutcher just got out of a tight party with so and so. The horrors of celebrity worship and common man narcissism is what irks me. But as what has just been said, no one checks out those things, but my question is please give me your definition of what the purpose of twitter is? @church due to the recommendations of who to follow is it more entertainment value than amassing information?

State of Play (the British miniseries not the Hollywood Afflack remake) explores the heart of journalism and the true merits of hardcore, tedious, traditional journalism verses the blogsphere. While such said discussions are more prevalent in the Crowe/Afflack remake, Netflix the British miniseries. Better acting, better script, better pace (over a approx. 6hr period.) etc… I liked the new one but sometimes there are the exceptions but the original is the better of the two.

@lostepic: Like blogging, Twitter is about as useful as the people you follow. I keep track of a couple musicians I really like (e.g., @mariancall), some people from an fiction podcast I am occasionally involved with, the principals at an forum that I moderate, a loose group of people who track certain cultural trends, and my GF. So, from my perspective, it’s like I forced all the people to do a group blog that I can check in on regularly.
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My ‘recommendations’ above were just a dig at Lev’s shameful lack of BSG knowledge.

@Church: a dig at Lev’s lack of BSG knowledge? thats lame. I for one have not be able to watch the last season. Saw the priemre and thats it. Due to work, crappy internet connection that makes it impossible to get streaming video and no labtop to go to a cafe and watch it on wifi, I too am behind on the show. I watch it soon enough.

@lostepic: At least you’re trying. Lev doesn’t seem to be quite as motivated…

I cut you slack lev. With as much media that is out there, then to filter it to the only great ones, and work, and friends, and doing things other than sitting in front of a TV, no one can expect you to watch everything or get so hooked that you cant miss an episode.