Do you Twitter?

It was really fun to read about Boo’s thoughts on Twitter after having inundated her for a month with everything I saw that somehow included the word “Twitter.” I should have just sent her a link to a Google search. I forced myself on Boo when I discovered that she had been working on a paper about the use of Twitter by presidential candidates. This is interesting for sure, but I was surprised at her personal conclusion:

In other words, micro-blogging serves its purpose. I get that. And I think it’ll be interesting to see if it ends up filling a gap in investigative journalism or allowing organizers to keep a step ahead of the police trying to shut them down, or making conferences run more smoothly than they typically do. But as a service that supposedly offers some value to my life, I just don’t see it.

So, I think I’ll keep my tweets to myself for now.

Maybe I came on too strong.

As of late I frequently find myself trying to explain the value of Twitter to my friends. This conversation often follows the “What is Twitter?” conversation, but in the end, most of my friends seem to not quite get it. Honestly, sometimes I am not sure if I do either. My friend Carly, upon seeing my Twitter page for the first time said, “Wait, you have a webpage for your steam of consciousness?” Sure, it might look like that, but I think there are a couple reasons to give Twitter another (or first) chance before you discard it as part of Web 2.0 craziness.

People complain that Twitter is just “one more thing”, and I guess it kind of is, but I’m not convinced that it has to be. I originally joined Twitter to see if this “one more thing” was something worth adding, but over time have grown mildly fond of my 140 character updates. The recommendation I would give those who are not quite sure how to integrate Twitter into their lives (or visa versa) is to mix it into something you already know and do. We all update our Facebook status. And what is Twitter if not the Facebook status minus the Facebook?

I installed TwitterSync (a rare Facebook application that is actually useful — thanks to whoever developed it) to simply update my Facebook status to my last Tweet. I don’t ever update my Facebook status anymore. I go to Twitter instead. Why is Twitter better than a Facebook status? Tweets can talk to each other. I found myself annoyed the other day when I had to go to someone’s wall to respond to their Facebook status. I typed, sure, but inside I was wondering if I shouldn’t tell them to “upgrade” to Twitter.

What else do we all do? We IM. So ditch the Twitter website, and add Twitter into your IM. Twitter integrates into my GTalk account and IMs me with my friend’s updates, and tracks tweets on topics I am interested in (right now I get every tweet on “craigslist”, “Foucault”, “LOLcat”, and “anonymous”). What Google Reader is to Blogs, Twitter via IM is to statuses. (Some people also Twitter via text-message – which is cool, but I have a text quota to watch.) Finally, when I want to update my status, I just IM Twitter.

Okay, I think I am sounding like a Twitter ad, so let me pull out two theoretical notes as well.

Rheingold talks about how text-messaging is used by youth to maintain “presence” with their close social networks. Twitter is a little less immediate, but I think there are some similarities. I recently had a friend move to Las Vegas, and ten years ago we probably would have just fallen out of touch. Today we Twitter. It is like having a conversation with someone over a long period of time, and Twitter lets me keep up with his life regardless how busy we are. Is it the same as having him here in DC? No, but I’ll take what I can get.

Finally, and then this rambling post ends, Twitter has a bizzare social protocal about it. The Internet used to be so informal. Hop into a chat room and talk to a total stranger for hours. These random virtual friends seem somehow relegated to the past as Facebook lets us relegate High School friends into virtual status, but Twitter is different. Because I am IMed about random tweets that are related to my interests, I have actually been making random virtual friends who are talking about things in which I am interested, albiet 140 characters at a time.

So Boo, you might not be convinced about the Twitter thing. Howrever, you are about to leave DC, and I would hate to miss out on your future tweets.

(Oh, and if you still aren’t convinced, go read about Anil Dash’s Twitter contest. I love the “passwords” section.)