I'm a twit. Are you a twit?

[SharonDee]

So I have signed up with the latest gimmick, Twitter. I'm trying to see if I can get any use out of it but it's early yet.

Anybody else tried this 140-character limited ... thing? I first saw it mentioned in an "Over The Hedge" comic--which may also be where I first heard of rickrolling--and now I'm seeing it mentioned in other places.

It seems to be like chat, in that you talk about what's going on with you in 140 characters or less. It's less work and more free associative than blogging.

I dunno. Is anybody else using it? Having fun with it? Tried it and gave it up?

[livius drusus]

A blogger I follow twittered the conventions and I frikkin hated it. It was so awkward and weird and I kept thinking there was more to the sentence when I clicked on the timestamp link. There wasn't.

[godfry n. glad]

Maybe. But certainly not in that way.

Ugh...new koans. At that, they're looking at five second spoken news bits.

[Shelli]

I'm a twit. Are you a twit?

FTW in the next thread title poll.

[SharonDee]

I went with the thread title because when I signed up, the service congratulated me upon becoming a "twitterer". Ugh. I think "twit" makes more sense.

It could probably be useful if you wanted to keep up with a specific set of people, who were constantly online, and had nothing else to talk about except "what are you doing?"

It's kind of useful the way text messaging is useful, only less. With text messaging, you get right to the point without having to go through the whole making conversation thing first. With Twitter, you do the conversation gambit with nothing substantial behind it.

At least, that's what I got from their explanatory video.

[Shelli]

Here a twit; there a twit; everywhere a twit-twit!

[SharonDee]

Free association: As teenagers my friend would call me "twit", I would call her "twat". And we fell into helpless giggles of laughter.

Maybe that's the kind of thing I should use Twitter for ...

[Shelli]

[godfry n. glad]

twat

[wildernesse]

I tweet on twitter. Mostly I read a couple of my friends' twitter streams. I get them sent to my phone via text messages.

I don't think of them as conversational at all. Mostly, I think of them as continual status-updates. It gives me something to talk about with my friends when I do see them in person. For example, one friend had posted a blurb about her response to a law review article she had read. We talked more about the article and some of the other things that had been going on when we met up in person.

There is an article in the NYTimes about Twitter, etc. this week.

[Joshua Adams]

If only Adam were around to lol with me.

[SharonDee]

That was an interesting article, wildy. Especially the part where the phenomenon was compared to the days when everybody knew everything about everyone else.

NYT article

“It’s just like living in a village, where it’s actually hard to lie because everybody knows the truth already,” Tufekci said. “The current generation is never unconnected. They’re never losing touch with their friends. So we’re going back to a more normal place, historically. If you look at human history, the idea that you would drift through life, going from new relation to new relation, that’s very new. It’s just the 20th century.”

[Dingfod]

Without even reading the thread, yes, I'm a twit, an utterly complete twit.

[Plant Woman]

You heard it here folks!

[viscousmemories]

I am not a twit. Hell, I don't even text. Or blog. Or Flickr. Or MySpace.

I hardly even Facebook.

I'm Old School.

[Shelli]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I am not a twit. Hell, I don't even text. Or blog. Or Flickr. Or MySpace.

I hardly even Facebook.

I'm Old School.

Except that I never even Facebook.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I am not a twit. Hell, I don't even text. Or blog. Or Flickr. Or MySpace.

I hardly even Facebook.

I'm Old School.

Picking up on this response late:

You know, VM, its amazing to me. I can program in something like 12 programming languages fluently (picked up C# in the last two months and wrote a whole - get this - end-user simplified business application development program - in it) and I'm a complete techno-grouch. I've got friend's asking me "why don't you twitter" and I'm, like, "WHAT USE DOES IT HAVE TO ME OR YOU? MY LIFE IS TOO BORING TO ADD TRAFFIC TO THE INTERNETS".

When I was younger I was gaga over every new innovation. Now its: Do I need it? Want it? No. Don't care. Before there was a (commercially available) Interscapes, my friends and I were all "One day there will be some kind of worldwide network and the RPG opportunities will be incredible!!one1". Now its "bleh, MMORPGS suck donkey's balls so hard, they've got a big fat hardon for MMO but everything is 'instances'. Well done, asshole. Your mark, fail."

People are like, "HEY FAFS, HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THE NEW WINDOWS MOBILE WHATEVER CELLPHONE CAN DO??!!ONEONE1" and I'm "I FUKKEN HATE WINDOWS MOBILE, ITS DESIGNED TO BE A PALM COMPUTER OS WHEN ALL I WANT IS A FUKKEN PHONE, BASTARD SHIT. JESUS DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE LIVES?". Its a love-hate thing.

And somehow I'm not surprised that the technical wiz of the forum admin has a similar 'tude.

[Leesifer]

Originally Posted by Farren

Picking up on this response late:

You know, VM, its amazing to me. I can program in something like 12 programming languages fluently (picked up C# in the last two months and wrote a whole - get this - end-user simplified business application development program - in it) and I'm a complete techno-grouch. I've got friend's asking me "why don't you twitter" and I'm, like, "WHAT USE DOES IT HAVE TO ME OR YOU? MY LIFE IS TOO BORING TO ADD TRAFFIC TO THE INTERNETS".

When I was younger I was gaga over every new innovation. Now its: Do I need it? Want it? No. Don't care. Before there was a (commercially available) Interscapes, my friends and I were all "One day there will be some kind of worldwide network and the RPG opportunities will be incredible!!one1". Now its "bleh, MMORPGS suck donkey's balls so hard, they've got a big fat hardon for MMO but everything is 'instances'. Well done, asshole. Your mark, fail."

People are like, "HEY FAFS, HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THE NEW WINDOWS MOBILE WHATEVER CELLPHONE CAN DO??!!ONEONE1" and I'm "I FUKKEN HATE WINDOWS MOBILE, ITS DESIGNED TO BE A PALM COMPUTER OS WHEN ALL I WANT IS A FUKKEN PHONE, BASTARD SHIT. JESUS DO YOU PEOPLE HAVE LIVES?". Its a love-hate thing.

And somehow I'm not surprised that the technical wiz of the forum admin has a similar 'tude.

meh! gtfo. I've worked in IT for over 3/4 of my career.

I loved playing WoW and I love Facebook and Twitter. And I'm older than you!

[Crumb]

These kids today. Why can't they be satisfied with an old fashioned BBS?

[BracesForImpact]

I made a myspace page just out of curiosity. I do actually update it, but not too often. That's about it for me.

[SharonDee]

My daughter made it clear long ago that MySpace is HER space and I'm not allowed to go there.

So I don't.

[godfry n. glad]

Does this mean those with Twitter will take up twitterpating?

[Corona688]

someone explain to me what this is useful for again? you can update that fast on a blog, except people don't, because that's silly.

[wildernesse]

It's just a way to check in with friends more regularly. A window into their world. A way to be present in their lives even if you can't be there.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by wildernesse

It's just a way to check in with friends more regularly. A window into their world. A way to be present in their lives even if you can't be there.

Whoop.

They can continue to sit in front of their computer and experience life vicariously through a means of text bites.