Michael Agger's Slate article about The allure of Twitter might just as well have been written by me. As it is he's certainly talking about the state of twitter as I experience it, calling the twitters overheard "a slightly nerdier version of the real world."
My take is similar. Think of sitting at a very quiet Starbuck's, wearing a CIA ear-piece that lets you hear short tidbits of what's in the heads of passers-by . . but only when YOU want to hear their thought bubbles.
In this world:
I have their permission to listen in but no obligation to have a witty reply, a sympathetic shoulder or any response whatsoever.
I have the option of following things they say later if I find them interesting or acknowledging something I'm interested in.
Pure pleasure. I can just watch this on my Tweetbar sidebar (a free download from Mike Demers) or I can drop in to my twitter page on the web and read along what people are tweeting.
If I decide to give into the temptation to "watch" this world wide conversation happen in near real time on "twittervision" I may be down the addictive rabbit hole for awhile.
Back to Michael Agger's Twitter insights:
"Watching Twittervision is akin to sitting at a sidewalk cafe and letting a slightly nerdier version of the real world go by.
"Active twittering is . . . both deflating and affirming. Do my friends really care what I am doing?
"Unlike open-mic nights, getting tweets from people is enjoyable. There is a pleasant sense of faint connection, as if you are standing silently next to them. It's also a quick shot of empathy: You imagine where they are and what they might be seeing.
"Because Twitter reaches into phones and computers" (but can be enabled and disabled with a simple command) "or wherever a person might be, it's intimate, a friendly buzz in the pocket.
Snippets, thought spurts, stream-of-consciousness, call it what you will, Twitter provides a nice refuge from spam and e-mail. And the freedom of not feeling obligated to reply to twitters and tweets is a huge draw.
Read more about it
The Allure of Twitter - the latest Web sensation. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine
Listen to a podcast that includes lots of info about twitter, blogs, podcasts and the rest of the new media world at For Immediate Release
And if you're not totally twittered out at that point read through Twitter vs Jaiku
Sharing Link Love to Cao's Blog, Perri Nelson Obligatory Anecdotes, and Jo's Cafe
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Susan, thanks for comments on my blog regarding Twitter, Jaiku and now Ziki. I am not sure what I'll do with Jaiku, Twitter is just more fun to me. It really feels more like a community.
I got interested in Ziki, Vox and others like it because I want to create a centralized web presence for myself and aggregate links to my profiles in one place. I wrote about that in my previous post. Ziki and Vox look like the best bets right now if they can work out the kinks.
See you on Twitter, I friended you!
Posted by: Cathleen Rittereiser | 04/14/2007 at 02:48 AM