In Defense of Twitter – An Essay
Precursor to the Precursor: These were a collection of thoughts bouncing around in my head that would often come out through unorganized, jumble/babble when twitter was brought up in conversations. A Good friend encouraged me to write them down. I had no idea I would write this much. Here we go.
Precurser: Twitter is a prime example of new media, social media, convergence and crowd sourcing. These topics are the source for endless research, debate and prediction. Experts send their lives exploring this stuff. What I write will briefly touch on these topics, but will be mainly for people new to twitter, for those who do not understand it, or for those who don’t like it.
In January 2009, I started a Carnegie-Knight-funded Fellowship focusing on the future of journalism. In an attempt to understand and become an active member of the ‘new media revolution,’ I joined Twitter- skeptically. However six months down the line, I have found one of the most beneficial and enjoyable advances in communications technology to date.
First, It needs to be understood that Twitter the company does not represent or advertise its product well. One of my best friends, who is an expert in social media, convergence and journalism likes to say, “twitter does not know what they have.” I have to agree.
Twitter advertises itself with the slogan, “What Are You doing?” But it it so much more than that. Their slogan elicits responses akin to the negative stereotype the website can generate: “Andrew is eating a sandwich,” “Andrew LOOOOOOVES coke!” “Andrew had a bad day.”
If this is your vision of twitter, your criticisms are correct. And if Twitter was used this way, it would quickly die. However, this is not the way it is being used. In reality it is being used in much more beneficial ways.
Four Reasons why twitter works:
1. Crowd Sourcing:
Twitter works as an instantaneous conglomerating tool for social networks. Let’s say you have 10 friends following you on twitter, and you follow them. Now quicker than ever, you can ‘tweet’ out “pool party at my house tonight – bring swim suit and snacks,.’ Your can know about it the moment you send it out, they can reply, they can forward it, they can tell you about the other party everyone is going to. Or what about this:
You decide to drive to Blockbuster (even though Netflix is way cooler) and rent a movie. Before you leave, you tweet out “What movie should I rent – I’m looking for a romantic comedy?” from your computer.
By the time you get to Blockbuster, you check your phone and see that of your 57 followers, 23 have replied, and “Marley and Me” has won by a margin of 10 votes. Decision made.
Not a good enough reason for you? Consider this:
Iran recently hosted a democratic election which was open to the public for voting. The current president won by over 60%. The masses didn’t believe it and felt the results had been tampered with. Internet and mobile communication signals were shut off, international journalists were ordered to not report. Yet despite all of this mass riots still broke out throughout the streets of Tehran and Tehran University. How? Well, twitter helped out.
Consider this: at 10 PM sharp, from the roof tops across Tehran, protesters screamed out, “Allaho Akbar (God is Great).” This was the result of one Iranian tweeting out “ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection” His followers received that, and passed it along to their followers, and so on. Sure enough, the media took note of a surprising 10 PM rooftop chant of Alaho Akbar, ringing out across the city.
Internet-based social media companies, such as twitter, are about empowering and gathering the masses in ways that no government, news source or business can control. Despite what the news was telling Iranians and what the government was trying to suppress, the masses were able to communicate and gather in ways never before seen. This is and will continue to change the face of democracy. These examples have been a mere inkling of how twitter can be used.
2. Real time debate, a limitless audience
Twitter encourages lively, real-time debate, in which anyone can voice in. Through keywords (signified through a # sign, as in #fail = keyword: “fail”) and replies (you can reply to a person with @THEIRNAME, to which they will be notified. As in, I send a message to username DaveM by typing “@DaveM blah blah blah). That way, you can follow and participate in debates as they happen in real time. There are consistently great debates and arguments taking place on twitter, with people debating and others pitch in. Knowledge is created, ideas are broadened, people are educated, good things happen.
Continuing with this Iranian example (this situation has been a gold mine for how twitter can improve lives), consider this: The tag #IranElection has become the keyword of choice for anyone tweeting about the Iranian Election. That way, anyone can go onto twitter and look at everyone across the globe commenting on twitter about the election, give their own thoughts and have their voice be heard (by searching for that keyword). Another popular keyword as of this past weekend is #CNNFail. @JeffJarvis noticed that the CNN Breaking News account on twitter has 1.8 MILLION followers, yet only tweeted 5 times throughout the entire weekend. The twitter community (known as the twitter-sphere) was livid and began keywording their messages about this with #CNNFail. Think about the ramifications of this: Crowd sourcing can work beyond debates and arguments, it can work as a way for businesses to hear what their audience wants. CNN’s audience was speaking directly to them, in real time, with real demands – imagine how business can harness that power).
3. Up-to-the-minute breaking news.
If you are a news junky, like I tend to be, you want to know what is happening NOW. After all, what else is news other than what is happening at. this. moment. Twitter fulfills this news-lust. I’ll follow stories for hours on twitter before I can find anything on CNN.com. And my knowledge about information is expanded. For an example: In the last 4 hours, I have learned about Obama’s comments regarding Iran, a foiled plot to kill Pres. Jimmy Carter in Palestine, two Spanish f-18s that crashed near the Canaries and information about a decision made by the International Olympic Committee regarding Kuwait. All of this from one news source (@BreakingNew). The majority of the time, when I want to learn more about a story, I’ll end up having to wait hours for CNN.com or MSNBC.com to show coverage of the event.
Even better, there are countless sources for news, from any niche or industry. If you love photography (like I do) there are twitter accounts specific to that industry (check out @PDNonline for photography). Whatever your niche, you can find more information on twitter. Your horizons can be expanded. You can learn about stuff that interests you. It can benefit your life.
4. One-on-One Contact with your heroes and inspirations
Perhaps I have saved the coolest reason for adopting twitter for last: twitter gives you a new level of access to the people you admire the most. This can include whatever that person wants to tell you: their whereabouts, thoughts, projects, dreams and/or work. People who love Shaq (@TheRealShaq) can follow him on twitter and get instantaneous messages from Shaq, direct to them, on his thoughts about losing a game. Fans of Arizona senator John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) can get his thoughts on the latest bill going through congress, or his thoughts about his favorite burger joint in Tucson. In my industry (photography), I love to follow @MediaStorm and @MagnumPhotos because they are the absolute gold standard for photography and multimedia. Twitter puts the me in social setting where I can hear about Media Storm and Magnum’s latest work the minute it is produced, if they are looking for summer interns, or if they want feedback about their latest project.
All up, it is pretty amazing. It breaks down barriers. You no longer need the nightly news to interview Shaq for his thoughts on the game, hear it from him directly. Don’t wait for Meet the Press for McCain’s frustrations with the president’s latest speech, look at his twitter – while the speech is happening.
I would note that, it is a pretty cool feeling when someone whose work you like, or whose thoughts you respect, starts following you on twitter. It is also pretty cool when they mention you – it means anyone else who is following them might look you up and start following you as well. And as you become a more active member of the social networks you associate yourself with, your audience will expand and your thoughts will begin to hold more worth.
Some last thought caveats:
Twitter is only as good as your use of it and the time you invest. A big part of twitter is the third party applications such as Tweetdeck and Tweetie. These allow you to monitor the people you follow, send out tweets and look up profiles (along with a bunch of other cool tools) all from your desktop. That way, you dont have to go to twitter.com and follow up. I for one, always have Tweetdeck running on my desktop so that when I am at my computer, I can read, respond and forward anything I see coming across the twitter wire. For twitter to work in your life, you must make it apart of your work flow. Twitter is about news/thoughts/happenings which are going on NOW. Therefore, twitter is not the type of site that you check once a day. It’s something that runs in the background, that you check up on, like your email.
Twitter is only as good as your own tweets. If you are on twitter, you want an audience, you want interaction, you want responses. That wont happen if you tweet infrequently or about useless stuff. You want to contribute to the conversation. You want to add something unique to the noise. You want people to notice and listen, respond and debate with your views.
Further more, you need to be following the right people. In the same way that you want to contribute to the networks you are apart of, you want to be following people who are doing the same. If I start following a person and realize they only tweet about the ham sandwich they just made, I will stop following them. You want a return on investment. If you are going to follow a person, they need to benefit your life.
The 140 character limit is a GOOD thing. Tweets are supposed to be short, sweet, snappy and simple. If you can’t convey the thought quickly, simplify it or tweet out a link to an expanded version of your thought. Twitter isn’t about rants (that is what blogging is for) – it’s about being able to update people and send out thoughts as quickly as you have them. And when you tweet a link to something bigger, make sure you throw some keywords into the tweet so people know what the link is about (your message will help decide if they want to open the link).
One of the most versatile aspects of twitter is that it is multi-platform based. You can check it on your computer, your laptop, your phone, your smart phone, and soon enough, your tablet. This is one of the reasons why messages were able to flow so quickly and easily throughout the Iranian people. If you didn’t catch it on your phone, it was on your computer.
And with that, I think I am done. Twitter is rad. It works. I have more thoughts, but they will have to wait until later. Social media and crowd sourcing is changing everything. Information wants to be free. And before you argue, check out my precursor.