WebProWorld
Oh, how I hate when social networking software tries to be my parent.
Jon Udell touches on this in his post about Facebook: “how do I know this person?”
See, the developers who make this software really want to make it hard for you to add more friends. And what the hell is up with calling everyone a “friend” anyway.
The New York Times has a piece about Twitter, including a nice pic of Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey of Obvious Corp. looking pretty pleased with themselves — as they should, considering Twitter’s traffic has apparently tripled in the past month or two since SXSW helped it become the new black. Jason Pontin of MIT’s Technology Review does a nice job of looking at the phenomenon, without trashing it as totally frivolous and irritating.
Way back in the mists of time, Internet-wise, there was Jenni-cam — a camera (and later, cameras) trained upon Jennifer Ringley 24 hours a day, regardless of what she was doing. That seemed kind of weird, but after awhile it wasn’t really that weird at all. Now there’s Stickam, where hundreds of people stream their video-cameras, and Justin.tv and now Ustream.tv, which lets anyone create their own personal version of the movie EdTV.
In a continuation of my series Uncommon Uses (previously Podcasts, wikis and SMS text interfaces) I thought I’d look at Twitter, for such a new simple tool I’m thinking most of the uses are Uncommon Uses. One of the things that made Twitter take off was it’s simplicity and with that simplicity comes the ability for it’s users to mold it into what they want.
The blogosphere has exploded in the last two weeks over this new social phenomenon we’ve come to know as Twitter. While the buzz has certainly picked up concerning the service, statistics show that Twitter still has quite a ways to go to be considered a mainstream force in the online social scene.
Is all the fuss about Twitter much ado about nothing, as Shakespeare put it?
It seems as though everyone has an opinion on Twitter, the instant-messaging style app that Blogger founder Ev Williams shut down Odeo to focus on (wise decision, that). Pete Cashmore says that it’s another way to blog about your cat, while Karoli at Drumsnwhistles just doesn’t see the point — and in the comments on her blog, Robert Scoble says Twitter hate is “the new black.”
Like a great many people, I’ve been experimenting quite a bit with Twitter during the past few weeks. Although I signed up in December, it’s only in the past two weeks that I’ve got active with it.
During this past week, though, it seems that everyone and his granny has jumped on board.
Twitter is… what? A chat tool? A social network? A text messaging service? A place to dump your daily triviality?
Alright, Twitter has suddenly attained the status of a notoriously popular Application. After being fueled by SXSW, everybody else is talking about Twitter including those who don’t even have a blog. Talks in the Blogosphere have spit out stats that Twitter got 1 million messages sent recently. Finally after about a year of its launch, Twitter has won.
