At SXSW last week, I was surprised to learn just how many people spend time out of their day Twittering. Yes, I had heard of Twitter, but I never understood the appeal of writing about every little thing I do during the day. And honestly, I don't think people would want to know every detail of my life. In a sense, I agree with
Eric Webber from AdAge, that Twitter is an "exercise in vanity and a reminder that our lives are filled with a lot of mundane activity."
If you are unfamiliar with
Twitter, it's basically a personal page to write mini-blog posts, 140 characters or less, to keep your friends updated on your life. It's your response to the question, "What are you doing?" Like other social networks, you can friend people and follow their updates. Common Craft explains the whole Twitter process very well in
this YouTube video.
It seems that this way of communication has become extremely popular with professionals because everyone can update their Twitter page from their Blackberry, iPhone or other PDA device. In a way, it gives people something to do while they are waiting in line, sitting in a meeting or listening to a SXSW Interactive panel.
On a side note, Twitter played a large role in the
Mark Zuckerberg Keynote interview, when the audience turned on interviewer Sara Lacey. It provided a way for the audience to band together and share similar thoughts about the interview as it was happening.
Without being a member of the site myself, the main appeal I see is getting snippets of information quickly. This is really part of a larger trend in communication. We all have shorter attention spans these days and this trend is beggining to be reflected in the ways we communicate. We prefer to send text messages to tell a friend that we are "running late to lunch," instead of wasting a minute on a phone call. We want to get straight to the point when we get our news, so instead of taking the time to visit the websites for Fox News, CNN, etc, we use RSS feeds. People do not want to waste their time reading a lengthy news article, they want the facts quickly. This is especially evident in the fact that we have much more information thrown at us on a daily basis. More information than a person can absorb. So in order to grab as much information as possible, we want quick snippets of the headlines and that is exactly what Twitter offers, quick snippets.
While Twitter is mostly used for updates about individuals' lives, I would not be surprised if news outlets start using a similar format to broadcast the daily headlines. The Twitter format has the potential to become the new way of communicating as people continue to demand a larger volume of information more quickly than before.
So instead of blogging about your day or writing an email to a friend, you will just have to answer the Twitter question, "What are you doing?"
