What the hell is twitter?

So, it's been a while since my last post.. I've been busy, sorry about that.

In the last few weeks, a couple of my friends have joined twitter, but most people just don't understand what it's for. So let me try and help..

What is it?

Twitter, on it's most basic level, is very similar to Facebook status updates. You basically have 140 characters to say whatever you want to say, and it's public for anyone to view. If you want to receive updates from a particular person, you "follow" them. They don't have to confirm/deny such requests - the idea is that every "tweet" is public, and by following them, Twitter just sends the updates to your home page.


Why's it such a big thing?
First of all, it's a way for you to keep friends updated on what you're doing. Some people joke about twitter being too intrusive, with people tweeting about every little thing they do. That's not generally what happens.. nobody wants to read that kind of stuff.
But for example, you might tweet that you're going to a particular restaurant or club tonight; other tweeters might see it and let you know they'll be there too. You can post pictures of things you've come across. Or you might tweet a link to a news article or blog that you find interesting, and you think people might want to read about. The whole point of twitter is the real-time nature of the thing. After maybe an hour, new tweets have fallen off the end of your timeline (or news feed). So you're only reading the newest and freshest tweets. Of course, you can go back and check the previous tweets, but the idea is that you're kept updated.


Because twitter's real-time, it's a really good source of breaking news. For example, you can follow twitter accounts of news organisations, who post updates as and when news breaks. There's also a list of "trending topics", for you to see what people are talking about (it looks for common phrases in all the tweets).

There are loads of celebrities and famous people on twitter, as well as tech bloggers and news organisations. Even Barack Obama has a twitter. They all use it to give updates on what's going on, generally to keep people informed of breaking news and things they're involved in. Some of these accounts are just maintained by marketing teams, but you'd be surprised how many celebrities tweet for real.



How's it different to Facebook?
The idea of Twitter is to publicly post updates to anyone in the world, whereas Facebook is for actual friends. You wouldn't want to become Facebook friends with someone in America, just because they wanted to follow your updates.. that's seem weird. And they'd be able to see your wall & photos.. But you wouldn't mind them following you on twitter, because that's the whole point.
Twitter's great for reaching large numbers of people too  - if you want to get the word out about something, it's possible to reach hundreds of people at once by just posting a tweet. You can even ask people to Re-tweet you, which means they would send your tweet out to all of their own followers in turn.
You can also tweet about trending topics, and join in with discussions using the hashtag feature, basically typing #topic  in your tweet somewhere  (replacing topic with the actual topic involved)


Hopefully that's given some people an idea of what twitter's about. There's a load more uses for it, but that's just the basics. Maybe see you on twitter soon? My account is twitter.com/Kishen_R .. follow me =)

The Social Networking Paradox - Facebook makes keeping in touch more difficult

Lets try this blogging thing again then..
I always hope that my websites/blogs will have regular visitors and users, but I inevitably give up or stop updating them, and they're lost in cyberspace. But here's another attempt at one anyway.





Today, I was looking down my Facebook news feed, and noticed how I don't actually talk a lot of the people whose names I could see.
Sure, we think of each other as "friends" - but I just don't talk to them any more...and sometimes, I feel like I don't need to. The question is.. why?

Status Updates
One of the main reasons is I just don't need to call them to know what's going on with them. Instead of asking someone what they did last weekend, or whether they've seen a particular movie, I just read their profile on facebook. Usually, I even find out before I even want to know. Someone posts it as a status, or adds photos - and now that twitter's becoming more mainstream, I find out about these things as they occur.

In some ways, status updates and photo sharing is great. I'm able to get an idea of what all my friends are doing, from the comfort of my own home. I can see how my friends are doing at different universities, and it's easier to connect with friends and family abroad.

But on the other hand, I find myself being bombarded by irrelevant information about my friends. Today, one of my friends became a fan of "i know my family so well i can tell which of them is coming up the stairs." I might have learnt this about the person by spending time with them (possibly.. although still unlikely), but announcing such a fact to all of your friends publicly is just.. wierd.
If I ever brought the fact up in public, I would look stalkerish. So I almost feel like I know too much about my friends, and don't need to catch up and talk to them.

In public, I don't enjoy being left out of private jokes... But now, every time I log in to facebook or twitter, I'm confronted with a number of posts that are totally irrelevant to me. For example, a friend of mine's status is currently: "mr ansd mrs blobby... u know who u are"
Ironically, such posts on social networking sites make me feel left out of certain social networks, rather than included.

Blackberry Messenger
A lot of my friends have recently bought blackberry phones, with it's proprietary BBM (instant messaging) service. They've all swapped pins, and are now available to each other at the touch of a few buttons. Text messaging is probably just as easy, and as most plans come with unlimited texts, it's just as cheap. But BBM has managed to trick users into thinking that it's faster, or easier for sending messages.

The problem with this is that BBM is restricted to blackberry owners, which is fair enough - users actually have to pay extra for a subscription to blackberry services. But it causes blackberry owners to communicate more regularly with other blacberry owners, rather than other people. In fact, a few friends with androids and iphones actually want to buy blackberry phones, because of the BBM capability. Those of us who decide not to follow the trend are left out of the bubble, and we're psychologically more difficult to get in touch with. Friends are always bugging me to get rid of my android and get a blackberry instead, just because it's "so much easier to get in touch with you."

Phone -> Email -> Facebook -> ..phone?
Back in the day, if you wanted to get in touch with someone, you had to phone them. Simply pick up the phone, dial their phone number, and speak to them.
Then email and MSN messenger came in, and you began to email or IM people if you had something to say, rather than bothering them with a phone call. That way, you didn't have to interrupt whatever they were doing, and they could respond in their own time.

But then facebook came in. Things changed - wall posts had similar benefits to email, but people wrote wall posts instead of emails so that they would have a presence on other people's profiles, and look more "with it". Facebook made you compete to look more social; you had to have a large social networking presence, or none at all. People would compare how many photos they were tagged in, or show off that particular people had writte
n on their wall more than another's. The need to participate in facebook pulled people into it, and email gave way to wall posts and messages.

Facebook's "improvements" and applications, however, ruined things. A user's activity on facebook applications would now be available on the public timeline, and with users able to comment on basically anything. Facebook "stalking" became more mainstream, and people began to stop having much public interaction, to prevent gossip. This also ties into the status update theme I talked about earlier, with more application spam, and less genuine activity.

With facebook activity falling (in this context), it's difficult to work out how to communicate with people now. 10 years ago, there was just phone as the main method of communication. Now there's phone, email, facebook, MSN, BBM, and many more. The problem is now that if you pick the wrong method, you might not get a reply for a long time. A lot of my friends don't check their facebook inboxes, have multiple email addresses, and rarely log into MSN.

The only definite way of getting in touch with someone is still via phone. But that seems like a step backwards to many people. For example, it removes the convenience factor of the recipient to reply in their own time.

But for students like myself, it's hard to find mutually convenient times to talk with friends different universities. We need the convenience of replying in our own time. We have different timetables, and numerous social commitments on evenings. Children don't have this problem, because they see their friends every day. Adults don't have this problem, because working hours are similar across occupations, and people aren't socially active on weeknights.

So what's your point?

All I'm saying is that social networking has actually made it harder for me to get in touch some of my closest friends. We used to be able to email, and that was that. Social networking created a whole load of new ways to easily communicate with each other, but sometimes we pick the wrong method, and make it harder for ourselves. There are so many ways to get in touch, that it's easy to miss a message in the midst of the many accounts that you have to check for messages. Blackberry messenger creates a bubble-like effect on your riends, and if you don't get a blackberry, you've made it harder for others to contact you. And of course, social networking means you know more about your friends without them needing to tell you, and thus you have less to talk about in person!

It's just harder to stay in touch with my friends now. I'm beginning to realise that I'm going to have to make more conscious efforts to talk to my friends now - although I know what's going on with them, I haven't heard it from them. I've heard it from facebook.