Why I Won’t Twitter – February 22, 2008

This post is in honor to a conversation I had with my friend and fellow Likeminder Mark Lewis.

When I first joined Twitter about a year ago, I wondered what I was signing up for, and if I would ever use it. I’ll admit I was techno happy and looking to be that uber early adopter who told everyone about a cool new technology. So I signed up and nothing really happened. I had one friend for about a month then I acquired another one. That was it. I wrote a couple of posts, and nothing really came of it.

I wanted to love Twitter, I really did. I tried hard to get people to join, but then realized no one was interested. Why? Simply because Twittter is a micro-blogging platform, and for it to remain interesting, one must constantly provide updates. Those updates may or may not be intriguing or cool, but simple notifications of what one is up to.

When you Twitter, you don’t say a lot, and as a result you end up saying nothing at all. In order to counter this, one must dedicate a plethora of time to updating Twitter so that one’s identity, outlook, and purpose comes to light.

Twitter is struggling to have a reason for people to use it. The only people I know that Twitter are the super tech bloggers and ad/brand strategist bloggers. All of them have varying opinions on how to use Twitter and why to use it. People are seriously trying to give meaning to a technology that requires high levels of involvement that may or may not lead to anything.

My take on Twitter is that it can only serve one purpose. That purpose is to be able to instantly communicate with a large or small groups of individuals to deliver critical information such as where to meet, what time something happens, or what to do. It’s a great way to create instant social happenings and flashmobs. Other than that I don’t really care.

I hate Twitter, I won’t use it, and I hope it fades away. The idea of lifestreaming is ridiculous to me, and I don’t think that a person can always be interesting or fun to watch or listen to. Save your time, and put more energy and enthusiasm into other ways of expressing yourself and creating an online identity.