Why is Twitter so popular?

[John Coloccia]

I'll start by saying that I have been accused of being misanthropic, and honestly this is probably a good description. That doesn't mean I'm rude but it does mean that generally most people just bug me. I mean, come on....if you have a cart full of vegetables, and you don't know how to use the stupid self-checkout line, then get in the normal line so I don't have to watch you fumble around trying to figure out how to ring up a bag of Spanish onions. I mean, they show you PICTURES of the thing....how difficult can this be??

But I digress.

I find that other than my wife, even the people I like and even my closest friends and family members absolutely start to get on my nerves after a day or so. Hey, I love my friends and I would do most anything for them but I DON'T want to live with them. It's that simple.

So I'm trying to imagine what it might be like to have access to the most insignificant thoughts of my family, friends and acquaintances. I'm on Facebook and it's already inundated with updates like:

"Getting coffee now"

"Coffee is too hot....letting it cool"

"Forgot about the coffee and now I have to make more. Oh poo!"

I can hardly imagine what it might be like to have realtime access to every neuron that fires in every brain of everyone I've ever known. It seems like it would be a never ending cacophony of self important twaddle.

And then I stop and think about he obvious business uses of Twitter, and I wonder why no one (that I know of) has implemented this yet. Get rid of the stupid 140 character limit, and setup project workspaces, oh I don't know....we could call them Twits, I guess. As things occur, information becomes available, etc, what better way to share it and capture it with the entire project team than via a Twitter-like system? Hmmmm? Lack of communication sinks most of the projects I've seen fail, and Twitter would make it easy, yet all the technology gets used for is:

"Blew my nose."

"Owie...I burned my tongue on hot pizza."

etc...

[David G Baker]

I must have similar traits because most of the things that you covered in your post hit me in the same way you described.

[Mike Henderson]

I'm sure there are some good uses for Twitter but I've asked your question to a lot of people and have never received a response that made sense to me.

Mike

[Neal Clayton]

narcissistic society?

[Myk Rian]

People on Twitter need to get a life.

[Bryan Morgan]

I'm not part of the twitter or facebook crowd and I pretty much despise both (as I've posted several times in the past)...BUT... I must admit I found something I actually enjoy about twitter. My wife and I are pretty big NASCAR fans and a lot of drivers use twitter. Its great to read them talking trash on each other or to get different viewpoints of wrecks and whatnot.

Other than that, I could care less what other people are doing in their lives and I certainly don't care to tell everyone else about mine, especially every little mundane detail. Maybe its because at work, dealing with SOX stuff we have to do a lot of reports and change requests and stuff... this (waste of time) paperwork takes longer than the actual work does. Seems it would take longer to tell somebody about getting coffee than it does to just go get it. With limited hours of life on this planet that doesn't seem like a good way to spend it.

[Montgomery Scott]

Oh, the irony.

[Dave Lehnert]

I just got on twitter 2 weeks ago just to see what it is all about. I don't see it myself. I do kinda like the tweets from news sources like USA today and NBC, CNN etc..... Gets everything in one place.

[Joe Leigh]

Oh, the irony.

Bingo.....

[John Coloccia]

Oh, the irony.

Bingo.....

I think there's a difference between a message board where the only input from Montgomery and Joe is when you're in a thread that interests me as well, and a service where to get any of your input I must get it all.

I see a difference, anyway.

[Gary Hodgin]

It's a generational thing in large part. I don't twitter and never will. Heck, I don't even have a Facebook account, although my wife does. My youngest daughter, 30, "stays" on twitter when she's not at work. She drops by for dinner a few times a week and it's impossible to have a coherent discussion with her because she keeps her attention on her ipad and twitter.

The younger generation wants to stay connected. I retired from a university and most of my students in a sophomore level econ class would come to class on the phone and get back on the phone the minute class dismissed.

[Abi Parris]

Oh, crap. I am getting old(er)... which leads me to say: If I want to know how, what or who a friend of mine is doing, I'll take the radical step of dialing their phone number! At least then, when I've reached my saturation point, there's a button to press to make the noise stop.

[Rick Potter]

Well, on one hand, I don't twit or face, but then again I don't eat Indian Potpourri either.

Hee hee, couldn't resist.

Rick Potter

[John Coloccia]

Well, on one hand, I don't twit or face, but then again I don't eat Indian Potpourri either.

Hee hee, couldn't resist.

Rick Potter

Touche'

The real irony, if there is one, is that my wife posted about our little ongoing adventure on Facebook.

[Joe Leigh]

Removed...