Thursday, 4 June 2009

Kokairu doesn't get it, but didn't need to go to a completely different website to tell you that

So I joined Twitter a few days ago, and I’m almost ashamed to admit to it. Just the word makes me cringe for some reason. Given how elitist its users seemed to be, I was expecting something a little more sophisticated. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate and admire its usability, but having added some friends and some celebrities (the latter was what attracted it to me in the first place), I think the reason it seems to have such an elitist status is because it deludes its users into thinking they actually have anything important and/or interesting to say. Not a massive fan of Jono Ross, but added him, thinking there might be the odd funny thing to read here and there. Here are his latest updates:


"Morning all. Remarkably beautiful day down south. I wake to birdsong and the sound of myself sneezing ! Have a lovely day if you can."


"Morning ! beautiful day though I've finally succumbed to hay fever. My sympaties to fellow sufferers ! Pass the zirtek."


"Morning everyone. Am of to school with the kids then home for Japanese lesson. Have been lazy and not studied. Ah well, too sunny for stress."


I mean, who the fuck cares? This stuff’s too mundane even for Heat magazine. And I wonder if anyone DOES care about what other people write on this pointless site; are its users on there simply to write about themselves, before indulging in a certain fondness for the scent of their own gas expulsions?

I shall summarise this bullshit in an equation:


Twitter: T

Facebook status updates: F

Social pressures not to update your status TOO often (you’ve got a life, innit): S

Acceptability to update your status as much as you like (because you’re updating your status ‘on the go’ … you’re a REALLY busy and important individual, after all, who is blessing other users with a cheap and cheerful update on your deceptively meaningful lifestyle while you have 5 measly seconds to spare): A

Viruses, hackers, bots, idiots etc, which will become more predominant on T in good time, as its popularity grows, as seen on MySpace and Facebook before it: V


T=F - S - V + A

9 comments:

Sonia. said...

stop talking out of your arse :P

haha, i reluctantly joined Twitter in the end too because I tend to join pretty much any website that has any real presence on the internet incase i'll use it in the future. it's a habit i got into when i started professional webdesign to keep on top of new things but now it's become pretty annoying.

anyhoos, i used it a lot when i had revision to do as it was a nice little place to procrastinate stalking celebs but i don't go on it as much anymore. it's good to go on when you're watching a tv show (e.g. apprentice) and search for 'apprentice' and see what people are saying about it, for example.

you're right though, no one gives a crap but at the same time it's strangely addictive, the more you use it.

kokairu said...

Hey I didn't say anything about not using it - I'm not one of those people that will deliberately boycott something just because it's popular - I never failed to see the point of the likes of MySpace and Facebook, I just really hate the overuse of "Twitter" as the latest cool buzzword, when it's really not a revolutionary site (or at least it shouldn't be...).

Sonia. said...

Oh i see, misinterpreted you earlier! I know what you mean now and yeah, it's really not that great. I think it's only "good" because of the types of people that are on it (i.e. celebs) but I don't think it's a particularly revolutionary site. Especially because the idea looks like it came from Facebook!

joelyhatch said...

Alice

Love your blog and equally despise twitter, need to do it to keep the boss man happy.

You should check out the Ad Contrarian blog, he's got a similar style to you... maybe more grumpy but less militant... funny as hell though. AND HE HATES TWITTER!

Hatcher xxx

kokairu said...

Thanks Hatch, glad you like the blog. Trying to update it more often, but whilst I have more material in the real-life, working world, I had more time to update when I was unemployed! Also love the blog recommendation, I'm pretty sure that's my Dad...

A x x x x

Tim said...

I'm going to flatly disagree with you here. Twitter genuinely is a revolutionary site.

Yes, it's filled with vacuous mundane shite 99% of the time which is very hard to get around, but the potential of it is enormous. Think of the big news stories that have created a lot of the buzz:

Plane crash lands in the Hudson river: I saw a photo of that at least 2-3 hours before it was on the news.

Iran Election: the speed of Twitter has enabled the rebels to gain huge worldwide support and put an awful lot more pressure on the government before they could do anything about it.

Chinese Censorship: an outspoken Chinese blogger was recently arrested but literally seconds before it happened he managed to tell the world on Twitter.

And my favourite story, The Big Art People needed some scrap paper for a recycling project, so I put out a tweet asking for some. Within 45 minutes I had received 2 emails from different companies in Birmingham with a huge surplus of paper. Later that day I drove to Birmingham, met them and filled the back of my car with paper.

The ways in which the platform can be used are absolutely limitless, you just need to find ways of filtering out the shite. Step 1) unfollow Jonathan Ross. I did.

Let Twitter into your life Clark.

kokairu said...

That doesn't make it revolutionary Tim, especially the fact that you confessed yourself that it's full of mundane shit 99% of the time.

a) You saw a picture of the plane in the Hudson river at least 2-3 hours before it was on the news. So what? How does that make it revolutionary? You still came to hear of the news eventually, and no one gives a shit that you'd heard about it before they had. Moreover, it didn't need to be Twitter, it could've been on anything, a blog for example, or God forbid, even Facebook.

b) Equally, do we have Twitter to thank for the Chinese blogger's revelation, or just the Internet in general? He could've posted his comments on a number of sources, the only thing that makes Twitter special is the fact that its marketing team have successfully pulled in a significant number of users.

c) Yes, a remarkable and personal touch, but equally that doesn't make it revolutionary. It makes it useful. It just saved you a few minutes of phoning up some companies to get quotes.

If at some stage I can use Twitter for my own personal use, I shall do. But I'll still cringe at the sound of it... every 5 seconds it's mentioned on the TV/radio... arrggghhhh....

Tim said...

NO Clark!

a) The revolutionary factor is twofold. One, I came to hear of, and see the news without any traditional press whatsoever. OK so it didn't impact on my life in any great way, but the implications of the traditional press becoming obsolete are tremendous.

b) Again, speed is the key. Not just the fact that he posted it in time, but the message had time to go around the world in minutes. If he had posted it to a blog, unless he happened to be an incredibly popular and hugely influential blogger, chances are nobody would've read it (ever felt like posting something on blogger is almost more private than a diary? I have), and certainly not fast enough for it to spread before he was completely disappeared into the chinese *ahem* "legal system". Same with facebook, his friends may have read it but it wouldn't have spread around the world because that's not what facebook is for.

c) Surely any major difference in the way things are done is revolutionary. It wasn't a case of getting quotes, it was a shot in the dark. I could have phoned up any number of companies before I happened to get hold of one who had a giant surplus of paper they needed to get rid of and were prepared to let us take, completely for free. That could have taken me half a day, instead it took less than a minute.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that twitter is an open format that can be searched in real time makes it pretty revolutionary, and I'm pretty confident in the next few years we're going to find out a lot more about ways it can be used.

kokairu said...

Evening. Just had a lovely bowl of soup courtesy of my housemate - my mouth's still watering! Yum!