Can Someone Explain Twitter To Me?

[orleans]

i don't get it.

really.

what the hell is twitter? do you twitter? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? (as far as the computer goes)

thanks.

p.s. i may "twitter" in other ways, but for now i'd like to stick to the computer lingo

[LeftyMom]

1. You can post and read very short blog entries via your phone.

It's useful for keeping track of your friends.

[murielm99]

2. Forgive me,

but I don't know what it means in computer lingo.

I can tell you about how birds twitter. If you are up in the spring or summer when it is just getting light, listen to the birds. First, one calls softly. Then, another answers. Then another and another. They seem to be letting each other know that they are there. (I know shit like this because I have chronic insomnia).

Bird twitter may be meaningless, or may seem meaningless to non-birds who are listening. It seems to be inconsequential or innocuous chatter. Maybe there is a computer equivalent. Maybe chatters who exchange greetings and share small bits of information can be said to twitter. Maybe, like the birds, they are just letting someone else know that they are there.

[OrwellwasRight]

3. I don't think there is anything to get. It is as stupid as it sounds.

"Twittering" is just posting what you are doing all day on a social website. So instead of posting your favorite band or book or video or whatever to your MySpace profile, you twitter. I understand it goes like this:

I'm in line at Starbucks.

Still in line.

Just ordered. Cute barrista.

He's an ass. Gave me skim instead of soy milk.

Still waiting.

OK,. I'm at work now.

I'm twittering.

sorry, i went away. I had to pee. Now I'm back.

My stupid boss just told me to stop playing on the internet and get to work. What does she know. she probably thinks it is a series of tubes. Bitch.

On my way to Subway for lunch,

Back in the office.

Going to the gym.

On the stair climber. Anyone else here? Want to meet up for drinks after we hit the showers?

At bar.

Driving home.

Just got home. Now posting on DU. Anyone else posting on DU?

------

OK, so basically, here is what I have to say about Twitter. IT'S STUPID. WHO GIVES A FUCK WHAT YOU ARE DOING 24 HOURS A DAY? GET A REAL LIFE AND YOU WON'T HAVE TIME TO TWITTER. YOU CAN POST ON DU INSTEAD.

:rant: :rant: :rant:

[question everything]

5. Thanks, this is the first part

Where are these lines being sent to or post on? How do others read them - if anyone does, at all?

[OrwellwasRight]

12. Others have to log in to twitter to read your posts.

And I understand that you friend people on twitter just like other social network sites. So you can tell whole groups and groups of people that "OMG I'm stuck in traffic." That's why I don't get it. Maybe the person you are having dinner with cares that you are late or stuck in traffic or whatever, but why does anyone think 50 people want to know? Just text them already and be done with it.

edited for typo

[orleans]

26. i googled and found this:

http://twitter.com/BarackObama

[OrwellwasRight]

29. There ya go.

Perhaps folks are finding that useful.

[question everything]

44. For 5 more days (nt)

[DemoRabbit]

7. Stupid is as stupid does

If that's all you wanna post on twitter, agree, it's dumb. ;)

I use it mostly for sharing opinions on politics and news events.... and keeping in the loop about news when I can't be near a TV or logged into CNN.com. I've even shared an occasional link to a post here. I follow Obama for tweets on live events. I follow Huffington for tweets on their latest hot articles. I follow family and friends so we can all vents to each other about republicans.

[DemoRabbit]

8. PS... several news shows on CNN now use twitter and broadcast tweets

So if you want to complain about their broadcast or mccain or palin or anything you can tweet to them and they put it on the air... kinda like calling in. Maybe it sounds stupid, but at least it gives you the opportunity to TRY to have a voice in the MSM.

[OrwellwasRight]

13. Sure, but can't you just text or email CNN? Why does one need twitter?

That's what I don't get. Why a running narrative of what one does all day is necessary.

Maybe just because older folks wanted to have something that wasn't facebook, so somebody who thought his daily routine was interring invented twitter and then all the young kids took it over anyway?

[DemoRabbit]

15. You can't text individual anchors on CNN

but you can twitter them.

It's not supposed to be facebook... and it's not a running narrative of what you do all day unless that's what you make it. You're not reading stupidity unless you follow stupidity. Think of it as a kind of global chatroom but only with the people you want.

[OrwellwasRight]

17. That's what DU is for. :-)

nt

[orleans]

23. is it a website?

or do you go on cnn.com and there is a twitter link?

can you use your computer to twitter?

do you have to sign up for it?

[vanderBeth]

9. Unfortunately, that's 98% of twitter post.

Because 20 year olds really think we care that they just got on the elevator. Still on the elevator. OMG this a long ride on the elevator.

[DemoRabbit]

10. Uh... only if you follow those stupid people.

You pick who you follow.

[Indenturedebtor]

11. They're not posting it for you... they're posting for the hot 20 year old they hope to meet

which is what lies behind 90% of the stupid shit 18-30 year olds do :eyes:

But yeah this is a stupid fad that hasn't done anything that text messages don't already do.

This whole "Is twitter a terrorist tooL?!?!?!" thing is stupid sensationalist "journalism" garbage.


OMG THEY HAVE TEH TEXT0rS! Roon for yr LiFeee!!!!!

[Zookeeper]

14. I don't even like to answer the phone most of the time, so I don't..

understand a) why you would want to know what all of your friends and family are doing every second and b) why you would want your friends and family to know what you are doing every second.

Sometimes I think people are forgetting how to be quiet and alone with themselves.

And why, oh, why would anyone find what you've described the least bit interesting, rather than obsessive and neurotic?

[OrwellwasRight]

19. I agree. But I also don't spend my entire workday "chatting" or "IMing"

I actually work. So you'll have to ask somebody else why in the world they would find this interesting. DemoRabbit seems to be a big fan. So if you want Twitter defended, check in with someone else.

Like you, I think we are too connected sometimes.

Some days, I enjoy "forgetting" my cell phone at home.

[Cronopio]

27. Wow. And I thought I was a Internet addict.

Why don't these people just sign up to have the Total Information Awareness network (or whatever it's called these days) implant a GPS tracker into their bodies? That way, all of their friends (and DARPA, and the Russian FSB, and any marketing group who pays for the privilege) can know the exact millisecond they get on the crapper every morning?

[Tesha]

32. It sounds a whole lot more serious if you call it "microblogging"...

but yes, that sums it up pretty well!

And thanks to amazing new technology like
the iPhone and its GPS-based "location services",
all your similarly-equipped Twitterific friends can
now know exactly where you all mutually are as
you microblog all this innanity.

Tesha (posted from my, err, iPhone!)

[DemoRabbit]

4. Micro blogging

Short sweet messages. You can leave your own and follow others'. There are keyword groups where you can read what the whole community is talking about related to a particular topic. You can read updates ("tweets" from people you are following) on your Twitter homepage and on your cellphone. You can post your own "tweets" on your twitter page or via your cellphone.

I use it. It's fun. I used it a lot during the debates to relay my opinion out to people following me. I like getting Huffington post tweets on their latest hot articles. I even got my mom on there so she can send me little tweets about what she's doing.


If you go to twitter.com there's a demo movie there that sort of tells you how it works.

[machI]

31. When I was a kid, we had to ask permission to use the phone

Now people have to go high tech to cram everything they have to say into the shortest possible space.

There once was a time when people talked to their friends face - to - face.

[Tesha]

33. Next thing you know, you'll be claiming people should have sex face-to-face and involving...

the exchange of bodily fluids, instead of in Internet
chat rooms as God (and Sly Stallone and Sandra
Bullock) intended it!

What a Luddite! ;)

Tesha (still on the iPhone!)

[OrwellwasRight]

43. Sex in person? That's so 20th Century. And smoking is good for you.

[TygrBright]

6. From what is being described here, it sounds like twitter is how twits communicate? n/t

[OrwellwasRight]

16. LOL.

[OrwellwasRight]

21. To be fair, though, it seems really useful for DemoRabbit and therefore probably for others too.

It just seems for me like I already have the world at my fingertips with my BB, cell phone, XM satellite radio, computer, the "internets," and whatever. I'm about done with cutesy new social website inventions.

Besides, the first person who told me how he twittered and how great it was, was . . . . . . . . a Republican. So I am probably biased.

On edit: I just want to be clear that I am not trying to link Twitter with Republicans. I'm sorry if it sounded that way. What I am saying is that some of my snarky attitude toward Twitter probably comes from my own bias about how I learned about it. I was at some briefing where a Republican lobbyist was explaining why the high tech sector should not be regulated (e.g., no net neutrality). While he was speaking, he explaining to us, his audience, that he was also twittering, so that everyone who followed him on twitter could know he was in the middle of his presentation. I, needless to say, thought he was a gigantic a^^hole.

[Enrique]

18. Twitter is one of Sarah Palin's kids n/t

[mwb970]

35. LOL - best reply! /nt

[Swamp Rat]

20. tweet

:D

[MonteLukast]

22. I love that!

Especially the little Tweety's opinion. :rofl:

[orleans]

24. OMG! it's late, i'm tired, and i am SO laughing at this! it's hysterical!

and then the "HA!"

lol!!!

[Swamp Rat]

25. BOO!

:hi:

[orleans]

28. mcfrankenstein! omg! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

39. That's perfect. Couldn't be better. n/t

[pokerfan]

30. tweets: text-based posts of up to 140 characters

Looks really really stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

[ColoradoMagician]

34. Come people, get progressive.

Some of you sound like my old repub friends. Stop complaining about the modern technology. Twitter is a great way for kids and young adults to keep in touch. Some of them talk at school face to face, and then use their phone to send messages to their school friends and others later on.

If you don't like it, don't do it....I don't.

It is another bit of technology that will evolve into something you will use, like being able to post a message on a website like DU. Trust me, my OLD friends complain about email and the internet, one won't get a computer or even an answering machine. Some of you are sounding like that.

One reason to be progressive minded about Twitter and other technologies that you might not understand in the beginning:

Backwards Bee Twittered Her Crime!

Someone posted her messaging of the very political scary man, dressed in black, who attacked her. Just read that once and you will see why the police didn't believe her in the beginning. It may have not been twitter, but it was that sort of messaging.

[OrwellwasRight]

40. Yeah, which confirms my admittedly biased opinion of people who twitter.

I went to Ashley Todd's twitter page. She's an imbecile. Uninteresting, nothing to say, a bit of a dim bulb. Seriously not bright.

"I'm looking for an ATM," "I'm on the wrong side of town." "I just talked my way out of a traffic ticket."

Honestly, this is shit I would not want to read about even if she was my bestest BFF in the whole wide world. You know what, if you are lost and need help, call me? Don't tweet 90 people. And if you are not lost and in trouble, save the twitter. Let's chat and laugh about it over a bottle of wine.

I do hear ya. I used to be an early-adopter of technology (not the cutting edge adopters but the like the second of the five waves of adopters that are proposed when you read academic analyses of it.)

Anyway, not anymore. Sure, yes, if they invent something worthwhile, but I'm really over some of this stuff. E.g., I think, "Instead of Wii, get off your ass and play tennis" (or whatever).

And honestly, there is enough inanity in which no one is interested that is posted on Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook (speaking of early adopting, I was on Friendster and MySpace before Facebook was even invented), that I do think it is a bit insipid that they invented yet another way of communicating stuff that nobody wants to hear. It's just so self-important: assuming that all you friends care that you just got to class, or dinner, or the laundromat.

OK, so I am officially an old fart. sigh.

[Bluenorthwest]

36. For those whose thoughts are too thin

for even email. For those who wish to reduce communications to the lowest, most empty and vapid form.
Seriously, the whole point of communications today has become to not really communicate, but rather to just play a constant game of Marco Polo with a 'network'.
But maybe Twitter is just email for those in competition for Upper Middle Class Twit of the Year?

[ShortnFiery]

38. Hey I'm there!

I'd love to keep up with my buddies and family across the country ... all at once?!? Back and forth? TOO COOL!

Yes, I can be shallow and vapid ... at least it keeps some communication flowing. :-)

[OrwellwasRight]

42. Marco Polo! Great anaolgy! And now for Nigel Incubator Jones:

(Edited to fix image, hopefully)

[rucky]

37. It's like your own personal news ticker.

supposed to be stream of consciousness, or just little news blurbs about your very important life that all your friends are surely dying to see and can't wait for you to compose an entire blog symphony about.

[negativenihil]

41. twitter is microblogging -

aka blogging for millenials with zero attention span.

i f'ing hate twitter SO much.