TWITTERVERSE CALLING!
illustration from www.gapingvoid.com
So what’s the big deal about Twitter? Why is everyone talking about it? Why are more and more people using it?
Here are my thoughts on why Twitter’s been buzzworthy for now what seems an eternity:
#1. It is novel & almost “googlesque” in its simplicity. Status updates in an interesting format of 140 characters or less combined with a grammar of its own (tweets, re-tweets, the now ubiquitous hash tag) sets twitter apart from its peers in the social media fraternity.
#2. Ambient awareness/intimacy. Read all about it here, in this brilliant blog post by leisa Reichelt. Reproduced verbatim from the post:
“Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to…”
In other words, Twitter’s the perfect way to sustain relevant conversations in the online world with people other than your friends.
#3. Third party apps. Twitpic. Tweettube. Twibes. Tweetdeck. You name it and third party developers have the killer app in place. Beyond text & links, Twitter now provides users with a multi-media/ platform experience that is hard to beat. Much like Google & Facebook before it, Twitter’s creating an entire third-party eco-system around it.
#4. The Tweet elite! 10% of twitter users account for 86% of all activity. Every trend has its evangelists & early adopters and social media platforms are no different. But in Twitter’s case, the twitterati with their legions of followers and frequency of updates are far more influential. Their endless twitter streams breathe life into the “Twitterverse.”
#5. Stardust! Presidents, actors, star basketball players, TV show hosts, authors, management gurus, power bloggers, royalty, journos, Geek-gods, techies. The Twitter user list is a veritable who’s who in every field imaginable. Every time they tweet, it makes headlines. Sample this.
#6. A new breed of reporter. Barrack Obama’s presidential campaign, terror attacks in Mumbai, Iran’s twitter revolution, MichaelJackson’s death. Twitter’s been a focal point in every significant world event in the past year & a half. Its allowed a new breed of citizen reporter to relay news as it happens, real time! No wonder then that tonnes of news print has been devoted to it.
I’ve been using Twitter for almost five months now and loving every minute of it. Guess you could say that i’m well on my way to being a twaddict!
