All a Twitter
Written By: jonny.gotham
Date: April 18, 2009
Comments: 0
It seemed that all of the sudden, droves of people have begun to use Twitter. While I know that Twitter has been around for quite a while now, I only knew tech–heads to be using it — writing short statuses, keeping in contact during conferences, etc. Now it seems to be the next cultural phenomenon, mentioned on the Today Show, popular websites, and I hear even Oprah is getting in the game. Seriously… Oprah? Twitter is now the third largest social network after Facebook and MySpace, and gaining more and more users every day.
With the new edition of GOTHAM.BLACK, and with my experimenting with web technologies, I decided to jump in and see what all the fuss is about (You’ll notice that under the main feature on the home page, a cycling Twitter feed exists below the mini–info panel). To be honest, I haven’t been a very active participant in the various social networks that have come and gone, and being a paranoid hugely reclusive and private person, I also didn’t utilize Status updates for anything more than broadcasting my intent to attend various gallery openings and shows.
A Brief Introduction
For those not familiar with Twitter, the entire premise is to create a social network based off of micro–blogging, which is basically short, 140 characters or less messages on the daily pondering and happenings of people’s lives. For those familiar with Facebook, it’s all very similar to Status Updates or the “What’s on Your mind?” feature.
On Twittering
When I started tweeting, I really wasn’ sure if I was using things properly. I found several articles on Twitter etiquette, and in the middle of all of that, I greatly feared my tweets would become more annoying than anything else. It all seemed terribly unnecessary, if anything else.
As time progressed though, I began to quite enjoy the phenomenon of Twitter. A good collection of the designers that I regularly follow via their work and blogs I could now follow on Twitter, and I still have the off chance hope to start dialoging with them with some familiarity (creepiness aside, I recently realized I knew very few people that do my exact line of work, surprisingly enough, so it’d be nice to talk with some more creatives). With Twitter, eventually getting to such dialog seems like a possibility (far shot, I know). Beyond that, put simply, Twitter is fun.
The brief nature of the micro–blog, though sometimes too short, is a great setup to keep in touch and exchange ideas with. From miscellaneous links to the occasional daily epiphany, it’s fun to just put something out there others doing the same. Part of me wishes I had an iPhone to participate even more, with cool applications like Tweetie, Birdhouse, and most of all, Foursquare (I gotta get back to New York City!),
If you haven’t already, you should give Twitter a try. I’ve setup an account for GOTHAM.BLACK that broadcasts the latest site happenings, and you can also follow the sites contributors by viewing who we’re following. Tweet it up, readers&hellip tweet it up.