What's really funny about Twitter

Having entered the Twitterverse a few months ago, I now think I'm sufficiently well informed to make a few observations about it. In the spirit of social media, I won't hesitate to do so.

Twitter's a lot like chat, except for the fact that it lacks a lot of chat's real-time functionality and the 140-character limit is a very real limitation (even though you can expand it to 240-characters using Big Tweet, which splits your posts into two but at least labels them 1/2, 2/2). The other very real limitation is the fact that you're forced to read from bottom to top, which is unnatural and disconcerting. The really positive trends though are that fewer folks on Twitter are hiding behind anonymous screennames, the discourse is - for the most part - highly civilized, and much of the information provided is not only timely, it's extremely valuable.

Many of the Twitterati (shall I define this term as Twitter stars? the most ubiquitous Twitter users?) are precisely those who were most disdainful of chat and most dismissive of its potential as a business app: geeks, journalists, and PR folks. Having attended a few moderated sessions on AOL, I've known since 1996 that the ability to bring people from around the world together to learn, comment and brainstorm in a text-based format was not only a cost effective but also a brilliant idea. Glad the rest of you are catching up. :)

But some of the Twitterati seem to have missed the point of social media entirely. For these folks, it's all about who's following them, not about the two-way exchange of information and ideas and the wonderful things that can result from the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. A respected British tech journalist Tweeted this morning that he had reached the 2000-followers mark, and seemed very pleased about it. Four hours later, he had 2009 followers - and was following a mere 145 people. I think we probably have to pardon him for not quite getting it: in his business, it's still all about having an audience and a following.

Some of the social media evangelists who update everyone on every cup of coffee they drink, every plane they catch, and every meeting they have, have revealed a fundamental lack of understanding of what should underly the use of social media tools: a solid grounding in what constitutes effective public relations - and marketing. One in particular seems to believe the old adage that all publicity is good publicity, and when he found himself at the centre of a controversy, continued to fan the flames by posting everything said about him and rallying his acolytes to do the same. The good news is that this will make an excellent case study in social media crisis communications. The bad news is that the discerning will have decided the effort of weeding out his wheat from his chaff is not worth it, which is a pity, because there's actually quite a bit of wheat there.

Others have demonstrated real leadership in the social media space, as well as a fundamental understanding of how important it is to take the high road in issues management and crisis communications. It's not fair that people say nasty things about you, blame you for things you haven't done, and supply their own interpretations of the facts. The sad truth is that if you engage on the mud-slinging level and repeat negative allegations in an attempt to refute them, you will only reinforce the negative things being said about you, appear to be whining, and, ultimately, alienate your supporters as you keep flogging that dead horse.  

Here's another perspective and someone else's tips on how not to use Twitter.

And here's a question: if you delete your Twitter account, will all your Tweets vanish? Or will they linger forever in the cyberverse?

If your friends are bothering you

Pomegranates, originally uploaded by The River Thief. Copyright Ruth Seeley 2007

I just got a hilarious email from someone via Facebook. Well, I'm not sure why I got it - at first I thought someone had replied to all on an email that sent us a link to photos posted on Facebook. I haven't checked out Facebook's email features closely enough to know whether the 'reply to all' feature was activated within Facebook or the responder's own email client.

What I do know is that at the bottom of the email there's a Facebook-generated line that says, "Are your friends bothering you? You can opt out of emails from friends on Facebook."

I'm not going to bore you with the ins and outs of why this doesn't make a lot of sense to me because the email address to which the original link to the Facebook photo albums was sent isn't the one I use for Facebook. Who cares, really?

I am tired of hearing about the Facebook phenomenon and of being told that I have to have a Facebook account (the implication being that I won't understand social media if I'm not compulsively writing on people's walls and Twittering like a mad fool).

I have been using social media devices for more than a decade now. To some extent, I've got a lot of it out of my system. The giddy days of chat are over, although I still think that the real business potential of virtual meeting spaces was never really harnessed by corporations so people could cost-effectively brainstorm from locations across the world.

But I also think there's something just plain wrong about the notion that Facebook and Twitter represent some sort of great technological leap in human interaction. Am I missing something here? They act as centralized bulletin boards, do they not? There is absolutely nothing new about this idea. The only thing that's new is the branding and widespread adoption of two bulletin board services that incorporate some rather natural technological advancements, such as the ability to upload photo files to static sites. Frankly, that's not as impressive as the file sharing features of MSN and Yahoo! messenger systems, where you can share any kind of file you like within an instant message. These messaging systems have always incorporated an archiving option. So I think I'm pretty safe in saying that neither Facebook nor Twitter are the neatest things since sliced bread.

During at least two presentations I attended at Northern Voice 08, presenters who were online while speaking were interrupted by 'notifications' that appeared on the screen, updating them regarding new Facebook wall posts or Twits telling them what an acquaintance was doing. The first time it happened it was funny in the way someone farting might have been. The second time there was a stir in the audience and a feeling of unease, and I overheard a couple of conversations afterwards about - well, frankly, the inappropriateness of the whole thing.

Having once (and once only) been reproached by a friend for taking a cell phone call from another friend when we were having lunch, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the pros and cons of multi-tasking for the last couple of years. I've always known that while I had two ears, I'm really not capable of talking and listening at the same time, or of having two completely separate conversations at once in person. I used to be able to manage four different chat windows at a time, but I type more quickly than most and the quality of my conversations wasn't adversely affected by the fact that I wasn't uni-tasking. On the contrary, had I been talking to only one slow typist, I would have been less engaged in the conversations due to delays in waiting for responses.

I've been a member of flickr for several years now and have actively participated in a few groups. I've met dozens of flickrites and have been really thrilled when something I've said or a photo I've taken has resonated with someone an ocean away. The best example of this is the email I received from a guy in the UK who noticed a photo I'd posted of a tombstone at Vancouver's Mountain View Cemetery (and must have tagged with the deceased's name). He said they have been trying to track this long-lost ancestor for years and hadn't been able to figure out where he had ended up. My posting the photo of his grave let his relatives know he'd ended up in Vancouver. I was pleased to receive this email and happy to have helped someone with their genealogy even though that wasn't my intent.

The appeal of Facebook and Twitter is just totally passing me by here, folks. I'm not seeing any pros, only the cons (including more of life spent tethered to an electronic device, even if that tether is a wireless one). Is there something I'm missing here?