Twitter no longer cool

8 Comments

1. 1
   Ruth Brown
   Posted January 29, 2009 at 10:38 am | Permalink

   But Twitter has always been deeply uncool — it’s still useful and fun, though. People jumped off the goodship Myspace because it’s clunky and poorly designed and a better product — Facebook — came along, not because it became popular.

   The mainstream media have been producing lazy Twitter articles for ages as part of the usual assortment of “people participate in popular online trend” articles that masquerade as tech reporting these days.

   If people ditch Twitter en masse, it will be for a better service, not because ‘it used to be about the music, maaan’.

2. 2
   Ben Haslem
   Posted January 29, 2009 at 11:14 am | Permalink

   Agree Trev.
   I was wondering why I suddenly had an influx of followers (if about 10 in two days qualifies as an influx).
   I was never really convinced of its value and am less so now.
   But I’ll keep the account active in case I find a use for it in the future.

3. 3
   Trevor Cook
   Posted January 29, 2009 at 11:20 am | Permalink

   I ended up with hundreds of followers but most of them seemed to be just trying to get me to reciprocate so they could build up there follower lists. I also found that when ever someone did have something really interesting to say they either blogged about it (who can say something really interesting in 140 characters anyway) or they sent me a direct message on twitter (which is email by any other name). The only real use of Twitter seems to be people notifying people of blog posts etc and friendfeed is much better for that

4. 4
   freihans
   Posted January 29, 2009 at 12:33 pm | Permalink

   I agree Ruth. Twitter was never cool. I know this, because I never used it. I think deep down Trevor knows it was never cool too. He probably once held out hope that it might be cool, as long as he was using it. Trevor is what a trend consultant might call an early discardist, as opposed to an early adopter. Early adopters adopt trends early on in the trend cycle. Early discardists discard trends shortly afterwards. Having a propensity to flit from one topic to another, early discardists are remarkably fickle people – who can sometimes reclaim discarded trends later on as revivalists. The question is: can twitter be revived or was it always just a slick marketing tool used to track (perhaps even shape) the habits of micro-blogging converts. And do people really want to be ‘twittered’ at all of the time?

5. 5
   Trevor Cook
   Posted January 29, 2009 at 5:54 pm | Permalink

   I like the idea of ‘early discardist’ and I’ve certainly adopted and discarded a lot of web 2.0 tools on the other hand I have been blogging continuously since Nov 2003 (originally on blogger, then typepad and now here) so that makes me incredibly loyal to the blog idea (though sometimes I admit to doubts) and I’ve been using an RSS feeder and downloading podcasts since 2004 so ditto for that stuff. Quite frankly most of the rest of the whole social media / social networking landscape I could quite easily do without.

6. 6
   freihans
   Posted January 30, 2009 at 11:17 am | Permalink

   Hi Trevor. Your discardel activity might tell a trend consultant, especially if you were one of a larger number, that bloggers are looking for freedom and a certain degree of expressionism. While often at the cutting edge of digital technologies, and frequently dabbling in experimental ideas, bloggers could also be a fairly conservative group. In spite of apparent outrages, perhaps bloggers prefer the nostalgia in having one’s own privacy, when one chooses, and the ability to posit theories without limiting characters under the auspices of a regime governed by newspeak.

7. 7
   matttaz
   Posted January 30, 2009 at 1:05 pm | Permalink

   You’re in good company Trevor. David Bowie doesn’t Twitter either apparently.

   http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7855392.stm

8. 8
   Laurel Papworth
   Posted February 9, 2009 at 1:45 pm | Permalink

   I dunno Trevs babe, I blog to the best of my ability, but having several thousand followers on Twitter means at least a percentage will read it. How else do you expect bloggers to build broadcast-y channels? We don’t all get luvverly jobs at Crikey Laurel aka SilkCharm