How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

http://nbm.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b8c069e201156fc96dae970c-pi

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live
By Steven Johnson

The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, "If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal."

I, too, was skeptical at first. I had met Evan Williams, Twitter's co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom '90s when he was launching Blogger.com. Back then, what people worried about was the threat that blogging posed to our attention span, with telegraphic, two-paragraph blog posts replacing long-format articles and books. With Twitter, Williams was launching a communications platform that limited you to a couple of sentences at most. What was next? Software that let you send a single punctuation mark to describe your mood? (See the top 10 ways Twitter will change American business.)

And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this "ambient awareness": by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.

The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn't be taken lightly. But I think there is something even more profound in what has happened to Twitter over the past two years, something that says more about the culture that has embraced and expanded Twitter at such extraordinary speed. Yes, the breakfast-status updates turned out to be more interesting than we thought. But the key development with Twitter is how we've jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of.

In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it.

<SNIP>

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1902604,00.html

which pretty much sums it up. Which part of the conversation you choose to join is what makes it valuable to you.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g41GPGQo0ehUaEaDv-ePcqqrXf_AD98HVMIG0

The military on Monday announced the death of U.S. service member the previous day from non-combat-related injuries in southern Afghanistan by posting the news on Twitter hours before announcing it in a more formal press statement.

Let a new comms medium be used for those purposes at which it excels. Two that come to mind quickly are liveblogging and public heath emergency alert stuff.

Example of the former type of usage:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8449910&mesg_id=8449910


There's absolutely no need to blow it up out of proportion.

Great!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/29/AR2008082901899.html

You know "Twitter"? Website for talk. Many eyeballs. You write short! Cut you off 140 characters. Is future of communicate way!

Welcome to the "short-attention-span, dumbed-down wave of the future"!

Sure, some folks twitter daily status updates about what they are eating or watching on teevee or whatever. Others use it to share news (with embedded links) and perspectives on things that actually matter. Just sayin'...there are options.

2008

Several 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns used Twitter as a publicity mechanism, including that of Democratic Party nominee and President Barack Obama.<53> The Nader–Gonzalez campaign updated its ballot access teams in real-time with Twitter and Google Maps.<54> Twitter use increased by 43 percent on the day of the United States' 2008 election.<55>

In the summer term 2008, the University of Vienna used Twitter for formative course evaluation.<56><57>

On April 10, 2008, James Buck, a graduate journalism student at University of California, Berkeley, and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested in Egypt for photographing an anti-government protest. On his way to the police station Buck used his mobile phone to send the message “Arrested” to his 48 "followers" on Twitter. Those followers contacted U.C. Berkeley, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and a number of press organizations on his behalf. Buck was able to send updates about his condition to his "followers" while being detained. He was released the next day from the Mahalla jail after the college hired a lawyer for him.<58><59>

Research reported in New Scientist in May 2008<60> found that blogs, maps, photo sites and instant messaging systems like Twitter did a better job of getting information out during emergencies, such as the shootings at Virginia Tech, than either the traditional news media or government emergency services. The study, performed by researchers at the University of Colorado, also found that those using Twitter during the fires in California in October 2007 kept their followers (who were often friends and neighbors) informed of their whereabouts and of the location of various fires minute by minute. Organizations that support relief efforts are also using Twitter. The American Red Cross uses Twitter<61> to exchange minute-to-minute information about local disasters, including statistics and directions.<62><63>

Media outlets use Twitter as a source of public sentiment on issues. The first trades union Twitter service was launched by the news and campaigning website LabourStart in June 2008.<64> During the CBC News television coverage of the Canadian federal election on October 14, 2008, the CBC cited a graph, produced by the Infoscape Research Lab, of items mentioned on Twitter, along with Tweets regarding Elizabeth May and Stéphane Dion, with the majority of the Dion Tweets calling for him to step down in response to the election results.<65>

In October 2008, a draft US Army intelligence report identified the popular micro-blogging service as a potential terrorist tool. The report said, "Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives."<66><67>

During the 2008 Mumbai attacks, eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 tweets every five seconds as the tragedy unfolded. Twitter users on the ground helped in compiling a list of the dead and injured. In addition, users sent out vital information such as emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals that needed blood donations.<68> The use of Twitter by victims, bystanders, and the public to gather news and coordinate responses to the November 2008 Mumbai siege led CNN to call it "the day that social media appeared to come of age."<69>

David Saranga of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that on December 30, 2008, Israel would be the first government to hold a worldwide press conference via Twitter to take questions from the public about the war against Hamas in Gaza.<70>

2009

In January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 experienced multiple bird strikes and had to be ditched in the Hudson River after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Janis Krums, a passenger on one of the ferries that rushed to help, took a picture of the downed plane as passengers were still evacuating and sent it to Twitpic before traditional media arrived at the scene.<71><72>

In February 2009, the Australian Country Fire Authority used Twitter to send out regular alerts and updates regarding the 2009 Victorian bushfires.<73> During this time the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, also used his Twitter account to send out information on the fires, how to donate money and blood, and where to seek emergency help.<74>

On February 12, 2009, Twitter was used to organise a global meet-up called Twestival, where Twitter users came together in over 170 cities worldwide in the first meeting of purely Twitter users. The event was used to raise awareness and money for Charity: water.<75>

The first criminal prosecution arising from Twitter posts began in April 2009 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Daniel Knight Hayden, a supporter of the Tea Party protests against the policies of President Barack Obama. Hayden was allegedly sending tweets threatening violence in connection with his plan to attend the Tea Party protest in Oklahoma City.<76><77>

In May 2009, astronaut Michael J. Massimino used Twitter to keep updates of their Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, marking the first time Twitter was used in space.<78><79>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

It evolution of Yoda speech, it is.

:rofl:

I might have had the attention span to read it all. :P

Everything I've predicted would be a fad or no have any lasting impact or which would be replaced quickly enough by something better and longer lasting has been proven true.

Twitter is little more than the ultimate in internet narcissism, a universe which has already been stretched to it's breaking point.

.... if not before. You heard it here first friends. ;)

Web technology gets such a pass in journalistic ethics when it comes to promotion, and blurring the lines between advertising and editorializing.

Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, is always treated with kid gloves in the press, and meanwhile we are just hearing about the death of old media (yawn) otherwise.

Twitter? Really? None of these media experts care to talk about the coarsening of culture, or what downward spiral mechanics we are subjecting ourselves to. Print? Literacy? Who needs it! We are all making so much money right?