How Twitterrific is Twitter? commentary

What’s the big deal with Twitter? The keep-up-with-me-no-matter-what-I’m-doing service has plenty of fans, but I happen to not be one of them. Why? There are plenty of reasons.

First you have to understand the Twitter phenomenon. If for some reason you have yet to experience Twitter or you don’t know what it is, it is basically a simple little way of letting all your buddies know exactly what you are doing (as if Facebook, Myspace, AIM, MSN, etc status and away messages are not enough). Twitter asks a very simple question: “What are you doing?” in which you reply with a line or two which gets broadcast out to just about anyone. The Twitter lovefest has extended so far that individual applications have been made to make you twittering experience even easier, as well as custom made Wordpress themes built specifically for sharing your status with everyone.

Drunk as hell? Why not tell everyone? Spend a night in jail? You might as well let everyone know why you really missed that Wordcamp meet up.

Yes, Twitter is definitely up there on the convenience and friendliness meters. Not only can you twitter from the site, your blog, a desktop app, but also by SMS. Drunk as hell? Why not tell everyone? Spend a night in jail? You might as well let everyone know why you really missed that Wordcamp meet up. Better yet, you could be drowning at the beach and actually give a virtual call for help, if only anyone would take it seriously. Yes, Twitter is fully of expansive opportunities which help all your friends really know what you up to.

But Twitter has become much than that. Twitter now also an advertising machine. Chances are you see at least a couple sites a day that have “follow me on Twitter” links. Even bands such as Jimmy Eat World are using Twitter to keep fans up to date with where they’re playing on a daily basis. The thing is, the more followers you have on Twitter, the more promotion you can give yourself, starting off with a couple “taunting” tweets such as “working on a new project, expect it done soon” to “almost done…” and finally “new site launched! [url] check it out!!” Twitter has truly allowed you to do advertising in status updates.

So what’s the point of all this? It’s a good question really. Why does the internet seem to have such an obsession with knowing what the hell everyone is up to? And why the hell would you want everyone to know? Twitter can be pretty helpful if it’s just a few friends using it or whatever, but when your friends and followers expand to all the people you don’t even know, than is it really required? Whatever happened to just calling or texting a friend to see what they were doing instead of checking their twitter account?