The changing face of Twitter
The Internet has seen many revolutions since its early beginnings in the 1960s; the most prominent and arguably most useful of these revolutions was the invention of the so-called World Wide Web. Since the introduction of the very first web server and early websites there has been advance after advance in technology making the web more interactive, responsive, useful and enjoyable. One of the most recent additions to the web canon is the micro-blogging service Twitter.
Twitter, for those who have not heard of it before, is a simple service on the web that allows users to post small messages (‘tweets’ to the uninitiated) of up to 140 characters to their profile and allows them to ‘follow’ the updates of other users and equally, to be followed in return. Twitter has been the butt of many a joke by those who use it and those who simply don’t understand it as it is often seen as a pointless method of telling people what you had for breakfast, or what you’re doing ‘right now’.
In its’ early days Twitter sailed along with a small, but nevertheless loyal, user base that grew at a steady pace. However, the service often used to get overwhelmed by its’ popularity amongst the tech-savvy community and so gave birth to the ‘fail whale’ – the infamous mascot that would display itself whenever anything went wrong. However, Twitter rose to the challenge and has since greatly improved its’ reliability and response times turning it into a fairly useful service.
While Twitter is still somewhat of an enigma to those who don’t understand it, it remains a viable and interesting method of communication with like-minded people (or not, as the case may be) – even celebrities are known to use the service, most notably Stephen Fry (@stephenfry).
So what’s the problem, you may ask? It’s a small service that gained massive popularity and is doing really well gaining thousands of extra users every week. It has gained many prominent users that include technology commentators, celebrities, companies, and news services. What on Earth could possibly cause me to doubt its’ future? Quite simply I think it will be a tragic victim of its’ own success.
As with many things relating to the web using Twitter has become, to some, a little bit ‘trendy’. It’s not enough any more to have a Facebook profile, or a MySpace page. You’re nothing if you don’t tweet like a possessed bird. Also, because of the high-profile people who also use Twitter, there are an increasing number of users whose sole purpose for using the service is to follow and invariably attempt to communicate with these people. Of course in many cases the person they are following is often not the actual person at the other end of the keyboard. It is well known that Stephen Fry is the actual man himself as he has confirmed in numerous interviews, Tweets and on his personal website. Equally the likes of Jonathan Ross (@wossy), Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) and Alan Carr (@alancarr) are all genuine articles but what of the celebrities who either don’t control or don’t even know about their Twitter aliases?
As I write this article I have 39 followers and I am following 39 people (you can follow me @jamesbmarshall). I tweet several times a day and I admit that sometimes my tweets are very boring (I can’t be interesting all the time!) but I find it a good way to keep my world up to date with my actions particularly as I have linked my Twitter updates to my Facebook status thereby killing two birds with one stone. I have noticed though, that the number of obviously ‘spam-ish’ tweets has risen massively from users desperate to be noticed by the celebrity ‘Twitterati’ that they follow. It’s for this reason that I think Twitter will fail.
Virtually every time I check my Twitter feed it is different; rich with the latest tweets of all those I follow but what about all the tweets I miss when I’m not sat at my computer, or browsing on my BlackBerry? How am I meant to sift out what is actually useful? Soon, if Twitter continues along these lines, it will become a sea of commentary from both amateur and professional, commoner and celebrity alike. It will be so full and so fast paced that even the most hardcore user will struggle to keep up with all the replies, re-tweets, and direct messages they receive. It will have reached its’ peak, the zenith of what it set out to achieve and it will be utterly useless as a result. Perhaps given time, like the economy, it will deflate, recover and become useful again as users stop tweeting and celebrities find the next vogue to become involved with but until that day arrives I can see Twitter heading firmly on course for failure.
James
Perhaps a little bit pessimstic?
Seriously, though, I do agree with the fact that particularly the mainstream publicity is now likely to attract lots more people to the service who will perhaps use it differently to the old-timers; maybe more for purely celebrity purposes.
It does concern me that the real power of Twitter – having semi-real-time short, unintrusive conversations with fellow normal people might become a little bit diluted with increase popularity.
Ultimately, the users will make the service. One of the most useful features of Twitter – the fact that there is no prescribed way to use it and you can pretty much do what suits you, may actually become a disadvantage too.
We’ll see though. Certainly until the next new and shiny thing comes along, Twitter suits me very well as a communication medium.
BTW, did you read my article on Twitter vs IM? You may have done, but this also touches on why Twitter is particularly useful for me.
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Pessimistic, maybe. Potential to happen, maybe.
I read your article about Twitter and IM and think it is very good; I myself have stopped using MSN Messenger as I found I had too many contacts and too little time to chat with any or all of them.
Twitter is the sum of its’ users 100% and like you say, there is no defined rules on how to make use of the service. It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming year.
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I like your post – which I found via one of your tweets.
Like many twitterer’s i don’t claim to get twitter, but I find it a way to be connected across multiple communities.
As part of our This Is Me project we are trying to discover why people choose to follow others on twitter, next time you follow someone tweet why you follow them and use the tag #dipanic
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you joined Twitter in Nov08, have done almost nothing on it (like follow lots of cool people) and yet somehow you seem to think you know a lot about twitter. strange.
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I choose not to follow a large number of people because it suits me; this does not mean I know nothing about Twitter as a whole. Length of service and number of followers does not dictate knowledge.
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