A couple of weeks ago I received an invitation to Twitter, registered, but then… I don’t get the idea. To me, saving every minute and organizing my entire life to make more room for personal stuff, this is an ordinary waste of time. I guess, I’m too practical for this and share the opinion of David Peralty up to the last word. However, I know thousands of teenagers would love it from first sight if they knew it was there. They always look for some chat boards, forums, and IMs to kill time.

Check out this post from Blogging Pro:

I just joined Twitter about an hour or two ago (my twitter), and my second impression is that it’s slow moving. I can get a whole blog post or two done before Twitter updates a preference or posts a message. My first impression, before I even signed up was “this is rediculous!”

I really don’t get Twitter. To me, it is like updating my instant messenger status information on Google Talk and whatnot, something I forget to do regularly, leaving my friends to wonder, “why has David been sleeping for four days now?”

(from: Twitter: Useful or Not?)

Comments from the past

John Martin on 04/13/2007

I thought the same thing to begin with, but I came to realize that Twitter is more about stream of consciousness than focus. When I blog, I typically am focused on a specific topic but when I just want to blurt something out, or let my colleagues know my status without having to update a ton of IM away messages or ask for assistance, I’ll use Twitter instead.

With Twitter, I’ve come to build a community of practice from whom I can learn and often ask for and receive assistance. Twitter is more social than a blog and can often lead to some surprising discoveries. FeedLibrary for example. I’d seen it in the past but until D’Arcy Norman started tweeting on his experience, I’d let it slip. Now I’m testing it in the hopes that I can sell it to my campus colleagues. And now I know that I can send a tweet D’Arcy’s way if I need his advice or need to get feedback.

Both have their place but with different goals in mind.

Cheers (and thanks for the test host for plymouth.blogbridge.com!)

John Martin http://edventures.whitemountaintech.net

Aleksey Gureiev on 04/13/2007

Interesting perspective. Maybe I’m just overprotective and feeling that posting tens of one-sentence “statuses” or “thoughts” or whatever I can find Twitter useful for will distract me from something big. Will I prefer not to take the responsibility of making one long thoughtful post to shooting a series of single rounds and get lost in the rainfall of similar? That’s the question.

Anyway, I’m getting philosophical. Maybe it’s just Friday 13th that makes me think like that. :)

Cheers! Thanks for the comment!