Why I Twitter

I really enjoy the idea behind Google's Dodgeball product, an SMS-based service that lets users tell their friends (and strangers) where they are. I think a lot about location based services, and I see Dodgeball as a catalyst for the inclusion of location data into a social network.

Despite that, Dodgeball never quite caught on for me and my group of friends. I used to think it was because I wasn't young enough, or because I was not part of the SMS generation. However, I soon realized that I just didn't care that much about broadcasting my physical location to anyone, whether my friend or not. In fact, as much as I like have a public voice, I tend to be pretty private about where I am at any given time. (Though, I certainly think there are many people who are quite the opposite of me.)

Thus, when Twitter launched a few months ago, I initially resisted using it. Nevertheless, my eyes were opened when I saw how my friend Eric Case had used Twitter to stay in touch while traveling through Africa. No Internet connectivity for email or blogging? No problem. Case merely sent SMS messages detailing his adventures to Twitter and they were broadcast to all of us who are his Twitter friends.

Put simply, Twitter enables the wide broadcast of anything one can fit into a text message. I tend to think of it as microblogging - blogging a sentence or two. A mobile and completely spontaneous and immediate channel for expressing the widest range of thoughts and experiences. Learn something startling? Deep thought shared with you? Need to vent a little? Anointed yourself the Fashion Police? Jam it into your phone or Blackberry and, instantly, your friends are all apprised. Twitter also serves as an archive of your messages, a chronology of all of these occurrences that can be shared and linked.

I think the beauty of Twitter lies in how it doesn't preordain how it should be used. Rather than tell users what to message or what problem Twitter is solving, Twitter instead just offers a powerful platform then leaves the door wide open and the users themselves evolve its application. I think that is smart.

Go here to try it for yourself and then you can find my profile here so we can keep in touch.

Comments

[BWJones]

Hrmmmmm. Signal to noise ratio is pretty low on this one and I cannot really see how this could be terribly useful beyond dedicated journeys and such, but for day to day use, it seems like one more thing to clutter productivity. I could see its application for processes however...

[Ev.]

BWJones: You're absolutely right. It's not very "useful" in the productivity sense. But then, neither is hanging out with your friends. Or ice cream.

[Paul Hemesath]

Sacca, just saw you on California Connected on PBS. Blew my mind. Had to look you up. Now go email you old law school classmate Paul Hemesath: phemesath AT nossaman dot com so we can reminisce about Prof. Bauman and the new internet economy.

[RBole]

I think that Twitter and Dodgeball are great for the random thought and the Saturday night "Now where are you again?" action.

My own interest is the practcial application of collective intelligence to solve everyday puzzles. It could be something as bland as "Where can I get a red sweater?", to something more ambitious and complicated, such as "I am poor and have a disabled son and we were just denied our supplemental security income check because of this bizarre reason...has anyone ever had this problem and solved it?"

I like the idea of social networking, but have yet to see (and am interested in working on the answer) of how you collect, collate and tag "bits of wisdom" from a community to answer serious, practical questions.

The ability to have that content to come from various streams, such as SMS, make it even more challenging.

Any thoughts out there?

[abercrombie and fitch uk]

Well said, such a person should be a good sentence, or the future will be more rampant.

[Abercrombie and fitch london]

houghts on aerodynamic stabilization? What would a white sail with blue wedge lined by silver look like? Real pretty I recon!! Is this design known as the flying wedge?

[abercrombie fitch]

It is hard to say such a thing is clear.

[abercrombie]

talk about Oregon. It had a rhythm that kept me focused and didn't allow me to go numb at any point.1