Twitter and the magic of TweetDeck
I started using a free Twitter app called TweetDeck at home that has been ridiculously cool to use for a very unexpected reason: watching cultural zeitgeist in real time.
You see, tweetdeck has a pane you can use called TwitScoop. It creates a tag cloud of the most common #tags being used on twitter right now. Like, now. Right this second. It looks kinda like this:
So as you can see, apparently people are going nuts tagging all their tweets with #ldsconf. I had no idea what it was, so I clicked it and it took me here:
http://www.twitscoop.com/twits/search?q=ldsconf
Huh. So apparently there’s some sort of Latter Day Saint conference going on and a whole bunch of people are tweeting about it. I’m guessing from some of the other tags in the tag cloud that Elder Hales is currently giving a presentation. Right now. And I can read people’s thoughts on what he’s saying as he’s saying it.
And now the word “arrow” is huge cause apparently Miley Cyrus just asked how to reply to people and everyone is telling her to click the reply arrow. Eat that, LDS. You’re less important that Miley’s failure to understand simple technology.
Am I alone in thinking this is incredibly cool?
Comments
John said:Am I alone in thinking this is incredibly cool?
This is very cool! Probably the thing that will keep me interested the most.
O.K. will THIS make you realize I’m right about this?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iM-vFMQttsn9TwTpGR59Q9eWoHZQD97FLCP01
I will reiterate: abuse of a technology does not invalidate a technology. Do you hate the world wide web because the God Hates Fags church has a web site?
It’s easy to hate to hate twitter, I understand. It represents almost everything that’s wrong with the world: snippety, contentless, navel-gazing bullshit. But there are some really awesome, amazing things that are happening with it, too.
Also, it’s fun to talk to your friends all day in what is essentially one big chatroom.
I like doing that too. Except I do it in person, and instead of calling it “tweeting,” I call it life.
John said:I will reiterate: abuse of a technology does not invalidate a technology. Do you hate the world wide web because the God Hates Fags church has a web site?
It’s easy to hate to hate twitter, I understand. It represents almost everything that’s wrong with the world: snippety, contentless, navel-gazing bullshit. But there are some really awesome, amazing things that are happening with it, too.
Also, it’s fun to talk to your friends all day in what is essentially one big chatroom.
Again, I’m not talking about the technology of a system that allows multiple users to talk to each other in real time. I didn’t have any problem with it when it was called a chat room, and if someone comes up with another site or whatever that allows people to utilize that technology then good for them.
I’m saying the web site Twitter. People are just going to stop giving a shit because they’re so annoyed at it and traffic to the site will diminish and eventually even the tech types are going to get annoyed at and embarrassed about it.
I reiterate I AM NOT AGAINST THE TECHNOLOGY OF A WEB TOOL THAT ALLOWS MULTIPLE PEOPLE TO TALK IN REAL TIME or whatever else it is that twitter does. I"m just saying that the name and the site and the people that use it are just lame and embarrassing and this means that eventually even the “cool people” are going to abandon it for greener pastures.
Twitter will be the next Friendster.
O.K not to continue this topic, but I am still very interested in it. Prime example (and not to be a dick about it because I genuinely am curious): Why are 3-4 “tweets” from the Beirut show better or an advancement in any way to a nice, well thought out blog post or article on it? Same thing with the Dan Deacon show. From what you’ve said some interesting things happened in both events that I would probably really like to hear about, but I still don’t know what they are because you didn’t expand on them in a more thorough form.
I just think that writing anything for a public forum is by it’s very nature narcissistic (“You NEED to know what I have to say on this topic!!”) on all our parts when we do it, and this does little more than expand on that narcissism (“You NEED to know what I have to say on this topic RIGHT NOW AS IT IS HAPPENING….but only in under 140 characters”).
I very much like the concept of the “citizen journalist” (god knows the professional ones have pretty much thrown in the towel on their credibility in most cases), and I think that’s one of the best advancements of the internet age. I just think that taking things in this direction is going to make it like the boy who cried wolf and just create this ridiculous din of information overload that will cause people to stop paying attention.
Yes, I’m fully aware that it was just a beirut show and they were just off the cuff comments and none of this is a sign of the coming apocalypse. I just think this conversation is interesting to me and citing examples as they happen lends creedence to the points we’re making on both sides.
Simply put, it was incredibly easy to update twitter from my phone while I was there and bored. 140 characters isn’t the commitment of a blog post (not to mention that a phone is not the best place to be blogging from, even an iPhone).
When it’s over, I don’t care enough to tell the whole sordid tale. I was bored and looking for people to talk to, mostly. Outside of the professional world, I think this is the primary function of it. It’s just an easy way for people to talk to one another. No amount of overhype is going to change that. Until there’s a better, easier solution for these types of massive and mobile conversations to take place, Twitter isn’t going anywhere.
John said:Until there’s a better, easier solution for these types of massive and mobile conversations to take place, Twitter isn’t going anywhere.
So then we agree! That something better is going to come along and twitter will ultimately be a passing fad rather than a technological breakthrough.
I never said that it’s going to be here forever and that nothing better will ever come along! That’s insanity. Where we differ is that I think twitter’s primacy will be brought to an end by a better competing technology, whereas you seem to think it’ll come at the hands of over-saturation. My point is that over-saturation doesn’t and will not have an impact.
Of course, you’re not alone in your point of view, it seems:
Yeah, but my micro point to the over saturation thing is has always been pretty much what that guy in that article is saying. “Geeks” like to be on the cusp of things….at the forefront. Now that everyone is using this thing and it’s being overrun by idiots (whether you can ignore them or not is irrelevant), my prediction has always been that the geeks who like to lead and not follow are going to start losing interest fairly quickly and that’s what’s going to drive the migration to them either creating or joining the next big thing. Yes, it will be for a better technology, but that better technology is only going to come from people get sick of the last thing.
Your last point is where I think you’re worng. Better technology comes from slow and steady innovation coupled with creative ideas. The geeks can’t just waive their magic wand and dream up the next big thing. Twitter’s going to be around a while, I think, before any contenders come around to steal Twitter’s thunder. And until said theft occurs, I don’t think you’re going to see a twitter exodus without something to replace it.
KevinV@John: Well see. LOL
Totally not how it works. Loser.
Hahaha…..I love how adamant you are about this. You realize at this point that anything less than you tweeting in a nursing home at age 95 means I’ve won.
Hahaha…..I love how adamant you are about this. You realize at this point that anything less than you tweeting in a nursing home at age 95 means I’ve won.
Some professor explains and analyzes with quite a bit of depth, tweets. One or so a day:
http://explainingtwitter.tumblr.com/
Hilarious!
I like how it would have been impossible for you to have this exact same debate over Twitter.
How psyched are you that your boy Ashton is TOTALLY going to kick cnn’s ass in their twittee contest? Thats going to be AWESOME!!!
Does it help my case that I honestly have no idea what you’re referring to? I could google it, but I think it’d just make me sad.
- No it doesn’t help your case.
- Yes. Yes, it would make you sad. And angry.
But for the record:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090415/ap_en_tv/on_the_net_twitter_kutcher
Wow, that’s infuriating because it’s the two most worthless feeds in all of twitter. What’s even more astounding is that Kutcher seems to have more insight and says more interesting things than CNN. You’d figure CNN would at least link to articles, but no. Just headlines. Ugh.
Hey Kev,
Have you been following all the Twitter usage stuff with the whole Iran thing? I think it just graduated to “valid media format.”
Yeah, I’m still not convinced as to how this situation benefits from being limited to 20 characters. If these people have access to the internet then they have access to other more expansive mediums. It seems to me all this has done is make everything seem more dramatic because it’s random, rash, snapshots of thought.
And yeah, I’m not saying the technology of instant mass communication is what is going to go by the wayside and be a fad, but twitter itself.
And also, for every 1 Iranian political revolution there’s about 8,000,000,000 of this:
Don’t forget these.
http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/06/proof-israeli-effort-to-destabilize-iran-via-twitter/#
You have such high hopes John, but come on, its the equivalent of a gigantic room full of people shouting, except the lights are off, and people outside the room can shout in, and most of the people in the room are retarded.
Evan, that is the awesomest analogy in the history of awesome analogies, and totally dead on.
That’s the other aspect of it. And don’t get me wrong, it was the same thing with blogs. I’m all for more power and communications in the hands of the people, but the problem is that as we’ve seen with new media prior to now, while it puts the tools of communications back into the hands of the people rather than the traditional media empires, the fact that as Even’s link shows it also is subject to just as much if not more tampering, and also confers a legitimacy on sources and outlets that do not deserve to have legitimacy conferred on it.
Best analogy ever Ev. I agree, Twitter sucks, and I had a really hard time keeping focus while reading the Iran feeds yesterday.
Kev, the one thing you’re missing is that these people don’t have access to the internet. They’re texting twitter updates on their cell phones. The texting aspect is what makes twitter what it is. It’s why it’s 140 characters. Without it… it’s just online chat.
If that’s the case then that makes Evan’s analogy even MORE apt and accurate.
But these people are actually using this to organize rallies, escape the secret police, and stay informed. It doesn’t matter how well we can follow it from the outside. It matters that people rebelling in an oppressive country are using it as a means of communication because of it’s accessibility. I don’t know how you can discount that.
I’m still skeptical for multiple reasons: 1) Just as many people are using it to disrupt and for bad as they are to organize and for good (Evan’s link is but one example), and 2) I just think that twitters actual impact on what is going on over there is being wildly inflated by people on the outside who want it to be more important than it is. I mean honestly in a country like Iran, when you have tens of thousands of people marching, how many of them do you think are actually impacted by twitter? I just think that a select few high profile, abnormally tech savvy people within Iran are being attributed much more importance than they actually have. It’s the equivalent of political bloggers thinking that changing their background color to green is actually going to do anything. It’s just more of the narcissism that makes twitter so annoying and ridiculous in the first place. I mean is it good even if SOME small segment of people have it to use for good? Yeah, sure. But I think it’s nowhere near the factor it’s being made out to be.
Twitter and Twitter users would like you to know that Twitter is a godsend for all Twitter users and people who follow Twitter feeds.
I don’t care about Twitter. Is it important to the people who are using it, protesting Iranian youth and self-absorbed navel-gazing soccer mom alike? Undoubtedly. It has a tangential influence on rest of us who’d prefer to wait and just read articles that aggregate, filter, and soberly assess the information that’s out there. If Twitter didn’t exist, some other technology would fill the void. I usually resist things that allow people to talk at me about whatever they want to talk about all the time.
Facebook is an interesting way to network yourself with other people and an invaluable tool for job seekers. For the most part it’s this boring portal where a bunch of girls I haven’t spoken to since high school, bloated and misshapen like contented ticks, have this endless and cyclical discussion about how tired they feel being housewives and the intellectual brilliance of their two-year old vagina-spawns for managing to let gravity do its thing with the feces.
I’m always amused by the way the cutesy and diminutive name “Twitter” is at odds with the endless declarations of how earth-shatteringly important it is. Reminds me of this morbidly obese guy I knew who always claimed he wanted a “nibble” and then spent half an hour shoveling fistfuls of saturated crap into his dripping chub-maw.
Oh man…Justin, you rule.
And this pretty much sums it up:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/iran-before-you-have-that-twitter-gasm/
The point exactly: Twitter is not doing anything more than is already being done with cell phones and other, more expansive social networking sites. Allowing a bunch of western geeks to follow what is going on does not actually qualify as assisting in or actually altering the events going on.
I’m sorry, but that’s ridiculous. It’s like saying the mp3 isn’t as significant without the iPod. Software feeds the hardware. Cellphones + Social Networking sites + twitter is what the whole thing is about. Take one of those factors out and you know longer have “the medium of the revolution.” Why people are flipping out about twitter is that it’s the hub — the software the connects the cell phone to the social web.
That’s not what it’s saying at all. It’s saying that the messages being distributed through twitter aren’t what’s moving things or having an actual impact. When it says it’s not having as much of an impact as the cell phone, they mean…you know actual calls being made on the cell phone as oppossed to someone tweeting a message. And their point is that those are largely going to westerners reading it and feeling self important not people inside Iran actually having an impact. Same thing with social networking sites. That more people are communicating via myspace or facebook using their computers than are tweeting via cell phone.
The bottom line is that if the people following the twitter feed are mostly english speaking westerners, and it can’t communicate in the actual language of the country where this is happening then if it didn’t exist, the events in Iran would likely be unfolding exactly as they are now, with or without twitter.
Now this is a usage I can get behind: Using it to heckle republicans. Quick summary, some GOP dude tweeted comparing the revolution going on in Iran with people marching and dying and fighting for their voting rights, with people saying not nice things to republicans and voting them out of office. Some of the responses are awesome.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/twitter-users-heckle-hoekstra-en-masse.php?ref=fpblg
HAHAHHAHA I WAS JUST COMING HERE TO POST THAT! I was totally going to be all “alright, Kev, what could you possibly dislike about THIS usage of twitter!?”
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Another huge problem that will undoubtedly arise, what happens when twitter starts to fill with spam? Or trojans that sign you up for millions of feed you don’t want. It’s coming.
Evan said:Another huge problem that will undoubtedly arise, what happens when twitter starts to fill with spam? Or trojans that sign you up for millions of feed you don’t want. It’s coming.
It already is. But you can’t get spammed by someone you don’t follow. That’s the whole point.
As for trojans… just stop using windows and you won’t have to worry about that.
You make it sound so easy, its almost as if 90% of computer users are just idiots.
Then again, if they all did switch to macs, then any effort into creating new malware would be aimed at macs, so yes, I agree.
Evan said:Then again, if they all did switch to macs, then any effort into creating new malware would be aimed at macs, so yes, I agree.
That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of why macs don’t get viruses. It’s not because they’re not targeted, because they are. Mac run on unix which runs 90% of all the world’s web servers. Unix, technically speaking, is the most targeted OS out there. But Unix is the reason why macs don’t have viruses cause it was built with proper process separation and permission systems. Windows does not. That’s why windows has hundreds of thousands of viruses in the wild, and Unix has a hundred or so (all of which require root access in the first place, unlike windows).
John said:Evan said:Then again, if they all did switch to macs, then any effort into creating new malware would be aimed at macs, so yes, I agree.
That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of why macs don’t get viruses. It’s not because they’re not targeted, because they are. Mac run on unix which runs 90% of all the world’s web servers. Unix, technically speaking, is the most targeted OS out there. But Unix is the reason why macs don’t have viruses cause it was built with proper process separation and permission systems. Windows does not. That’s why windows has hundreds of thousands of viruses in the wild, and Unix has a hundred or so (all of which require root access in the first place, unlike windows).
I like cheese.
Evan said:90% of computer users are just idiots.
Just misinformed.