What's so great about Twitter?

Parent Cafe
21

<p>What’s great about Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion, is that they have created jobs.</p>

<p>Twitter and Facebook are no longer just places where individuals communicate. They’re also places where corporations and organizations communicate. And there’s a whole new career field devoted to doing that communication skillfully.</p>

<p>Managing a company or organization’s social media presence takes a good deal of knowledge. And it’s very time consuming. It’s not something that people with other responsibilities can do in a half hour a day. It takes a staff specifically dedicated to the task.</p>

<p>Right now, the company I work for is advertising for a new “Social Media Associate.” It’s a newly created position in a rapidly expanding department. And it will get some kid out of the parental basement and into a career-track job.</p>

22

<p>Count me as part of the 20-something crowd that just doesn’t get it. </p>

<p>I like facebook because I use it primarily to talk with my friends/family. </p>

<p>Frankly, I just don’t care about what some celebrity or whatnot thinks.</p>

23

<p>Yes, romani, you don’t get it. It is SO much more than what a celebrity thinks. The sports people (fans and athletes) I follow are incredibly clever and hilarious. Also, tweets during awards ceremonies (CMAs, Oscars etc) are hilarious. I feel like I find out about news events faster from twitter than from anywhere else.</p>

24

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<p>I don’t use Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google +, or Harmony.</p>

25

<p>Okay, suppose I want to follow what is happening during the upcoming election on twitter. What do I do to do that? How do people post their comments tweets on these events? I realize these are pretty basic questions, but I really don’t know. I’m still in dark ages when it comes to technology.</p>

26

<p>MOWC, I said I don’t get it. I was on twitter for a while (still technically am I suppose- but I don’t even remember my login info). It just didn’t keep my interest =/</p>

27

<p>First , sign up for an account.</p>

<p>Second, pick a couple of people you respect/like/are interested to follow. </p>

<p>Third, sign into twitter a couple times a day and see what they have to say - there are no rules - someone may tweet once an hour, someone else once a week. </p>

<p>As far as conversations, you won’t see comments/conversation so much unless you click on their tweet box for a certain topic and see the comments. It’s not like Facebook with a running feed per say. It’s not so much conversation as it is comments/thoughts/info. There is conversation, but its not the main attraction.</p>

<p>Who are you voting for? Follow them and you’ll get LOTS in your twitter feed!!!</p>

28

<p>I love Apolo’s tweets! Some funny, some inspiring! That guy works HARD 365!!!</p>

29

<p>I like his tweets, he’s a very energetic positive guy! But I couldn’t keep up!</p>

30

<p>So is it something that most of you do on your phones rather than on your computer? Is it like Instagram but with text instead of photos?</p>

<p>My main hesitation is not only the additional excuse to procrastinate and the potential distractions but that sometimes these social media sites bring out the dorky high schooler in me. I’d rather not know what i’m missing!</p>

31

<p>You can do it either way- computer or phone- I tend to check it more on my computer.</p>

32

<p>Why I like Twitter: I have a lot of particular views regarding politics and world affairs that some of my friends and family don’t share. If I post those sorts of political perspectives on Facebook, I end up offending (or starting a riot with) a small group who don’t share my views. On Twitter, if you don’t like my point of view, you would not follow me. Facebook has become a sort of catch-all for photo albums, saying hello, etc. Twitter allows me to get news quickly and to share my thoughts with others in manageable sound-bites.</p>

33

<p>Twitter has been great to catch updates and happenings on the current weather situation if you don’t have or don’t have a tv on. I feel I didn’t miss much being at work without a tv because I could check my twitter feed and get news updates and updates from people I follow who are in the storms path.</p>

34

<p>Here’s a pretty good use of twitter that I just read about, from a NY Times article:</p>

<p>"…there were lines at the gasoline stations that have power to pump fuel for generators and for cars. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie’s office warned drivers to be careful because lines were so long that they had stretched onto the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike. One Twitter feed that had been following the hurricane on the Jersey Shore began sending out updates about where to buy gas…"</p>

35

<p>Hanaviolet, that’s sounds like a great idea, but how does one go about finding that twitter feed? If you are not following someone who is posting this info, you’re at a loss, right? This is the confusing part to me about twitter, because the people I am following ARE NOT talking about places to buy gas in NJ.</p>

36

<p>What so great about any social media?<br>
I do not have a cell with me, it is in my car for emergency. People are way too stressed out just because they are staying connected all the time. It is all overrated, including simple TV. It actually disconnect you from your current surroundings and from people around you currently, from the beautiful nature, from enjoying the moment in your life that will never repeats. Yuo do not see or feel any of that, you are glued to your device whatever it is, you are not doing what possibly might be a passion, activity that you would enjoy greatly if you allow yourself to be disconnected for a bit. Potential artist would not become the one, you do not have enough time to take care of youself, like exercise,…etc. nope you got to stay connected or the least to play some stupid game on a phone.</p>

37

<p>The best thing about twitter is the name. We’re like flocks of birds tweeting at each other. Most of it, as the name implies, is just chirping. Some of it carries meaning: here I am! watch out for the cat! here’s some food! </p>

<p>It has had some effects that are, to me, uncannily like flocks of birds. A sports reporter tweets about a trade. Other reporters immediately tweet that. Talk radio jumps on this. People start calling. They tweet others. Then it turns out the first tweet was a fake. Or was wrong. The noise subsides. The flock is quiet. </p>

<p>In this sense, twitter reminds me of an essential human quality: making noise, sometimes for no particular purpose other than because we make noise. Can’t fight what we are.</p>

<p>Another aspect is that tweets are glimpses. A glimpse of leg. Saw a celebrity. Big backup at the Allston tolls. Why are glimpses meaningful? Because the mind fills in a picture. A favorite example is the story in Citizen Kane when Bernstein describes seeing a woman in a white dress. She never turns around so he can continue to imagine her as she might have been. Our minds require image making. Tweets are little jolts, like sips of coffee. Which explains in part why some people find it addictive: their minds build these little stories and they become caught up in the flow of little jolts, looking for something, chasing something. To use another cultural reference, it’s the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, always flashing, always reminding us that it’s right there but just out of reach.</p>

<p>Connected to glimpses is anticipation. There’s the sense that something might happen. I relate this to TV and research on how we experience TV. (Surprisingly little good research on this, to my mind.) In sum, TV is a low investment, low payback experience. Costs nothing to sit, change channels, wait for something to give you even a little bit back. A hobby or sport or other activity requires a higher investment of energy. Gives you much higher payback, which is why staying away from TV for a week doesn’t work but a month does: a week isn’t long enough for you to become used to the expense required to get the higher payback. Step away from a low return activity for long enough and it bores you. You need more. Twitter is like that: step away from it for a while and you wonder why you enjoyed it at all. Get involved in it and you find yourself looking, looking, checking, checking for a bit that interests you. Low investment required to check, low reward in return. (Apply this to the way nearly everyone looks at their phones now. Low return, low investment. Lift your head, ignore the phone for long enough and you think, “Wow, that’s so boring.” But like Michael Corleone, it sucks you back in.)</p>

38

<p>FlyMeToTheMoon, I think you have to search using hashtags, like maybe you would sign on to Twitter and search “#Sandy, #gas” or something like that. Then you could either “follow” that subject, or just re-search when you need to.</p>

<p>I don’t use Twitter at the moment, because I don’t use a smartphone, but to me, Twitter seems most appropriate to use when you’re out in the world, away from the computer, and you need realtime information.</p>

<p>Interestingly, when Twitter first started becoming popular, I noticed the media was constantly referencing Twitter. I heard about Twitter everywhere. It seemed very contrived, and well, <em>Funded</em>. I have a feeling (not knowing any of the real story) that Twitter made some friends in high places, got a load of venture capital, did the saturation campaign, and basically manufactured all the buzz - which carried it through until a critical mass of people started using it, and now it’s pretty well established.</p>

<p>I know it’s confusing to us older people - to be honest, Facebook still has some confusing aspects, to me - but we just have to take a flexible, playful approach. Young people don’t really fuss about the details of how these things work, they just jump in, play, and experiement, and they learn how to use things that way. It’s a departure in “thinking style” from how we grew up. Everything is faster, less carefully done, less planned. That part is rtather uncomfortable to me, but there’s no stopping it.</p>

39

<p>That’s not exactly what happened. Twitter had good venture funding and was able to scale up quickly because, let’s face it, they’re doing text messages, not providing mass storage for complicated data or applications. That’s why they have the 140 characters. They then stepped aside, said we’re not even going to talk about making money from this for now and let things develop. People discovered they could organize messages with hash tags. Other people found they could follow people in their industry easily and stay on top of developments faster and easier than by phone. </p>

<p>Twitter has been reversing course lately. They’ve set rules that cut off most twitter clients at the knees. They’re actively seeking revenue. Etc. </p>

<p>But it grew organically.</p>

40

<p>Lergnom, your post #37 is a spot on , poetic way to describe Twitter. Bravo!</p>

<p>I didn’t get a smart phone till very recently but have been on Twitter since the early stages . I like to keep it open on my computer at work and every once in awhile give my working mind a mental break by checking it (just like I do CC!). in those small breaks, I get updated on news , find a chicle or two, get a research update from something in my field or just read/see a flash of info from a Favorite celebrity or band.</p>