By Abigail Kwok
INQUIRER.net
ARE you tired of reading lengthy blog entries that speak of philosophical topics that almost give you a headache? Never fear, Twitter’s here!
Twitter is the newest blog site that is uniquely different from its other blog counterparts. The concept of Twitter is micro blogging. That is, you write about minute things and details about you or just about anything and everything. Micro blogging, in short, allows you to revert to those old school diary entries that go something like,
“Dear diary, today I went to school. The teacher gave us a pop quiz. I had lunch at the cafeteria. I went home at 4PM.”
Founded in 2006, Twitter has since gained a huge following, with site visits reaching up to 500,000 in July of this year.
You may think this is a step backwards from the modern blogging world as blogs today are a proven worldwide revolution, able to spark change in societies (or even start an argument). In fact, blogs were even viewed as threats by some countries like China, which even banned some of them altogether.
But Twitter is actually very helpful for some, as it has been used in emergency situations like the latest California wildfire that occurred just last October. In that incident, Twitter was used by the fire department as their main means of communicating with one another.
The concept of Twitter is to answer the basic question, “What are you doing?” From here you can post anything from your activities to your feelings at that moment. The process of posting updates at Twitter is dubbed “Twittering.”
A member can twitter away almost every minute if he pleases. Some twitter so frequently that friends subscribed to his profile were getting annoyed at updates sent through their cellular phones. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported that topics people twitter about range from their lunch (fried chicken and pasta, anyone?) to pet peeves (buses along EDSA). Anyone can twitter using their cell phones, so just imagine how many updates you can receive in a day!
If you’re familiar with Friendster and Facebook’s status update, that’s exactly how Twitter works. Twitter is also a form of social networking, where you can hook up with your friends or build your own network based on common interests. Other features of Twitter include SMS and IM updates, so you can update everyone wherever you are.
Twitter is a breakthrough, in my opinion. Apart from being very user-friendly and easy to navigate, Twitter recognizes the fact that online readers have short attention spans. No matter how great a writer is, people will eventually get bored reading lengthy articles or anecdotes from him because, a.) Reading from the computer can give you a nasty headache and blurry vision; and b.) People just want to browse and get on with everything else in their lives.
And although some may think it shallow to read other people’s activities and thoughts, you have to admit that everyone’s a gossip freak. We all want to know what’s happening in other people’s lives. After all, we are curious folk. Even the most mundane things can actually draw our attention.
Not only that, you can also meet long lost friends through Twitter. It’s funny how some people develop closer relationships with the people they interact with in their online network as compared to their social friends and families.
Despite of some people getting annoyed at Twitter updates (hey, you can turn off the notifications!) the blog site continues to gain a massive following. Add to that, most of the members of Twitter admit to the site’s “addicting” factor. Like Friendster and Multiply, Twitter is fast attracting the Filipino online community, so this will definitely be an addition to those friends’ updates you receive everyday via e-mail. Brace yourselves, folks!
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:40 am
i hear a bird say Twitt..twitter..hehe. Nice one Abi.