Micro-Blogging

Well, I've gone and done it. I've created a Twitter account. At first, I resisted. Actually, I was kind of put off by the entire idea of Twitter. I've caved, though.

When it first came out, it seemed to me a blatant rip off of the Facebook status. Why in the world would I need Twitter when I have Facebook status? I mean, I don't even use Facebook status! I think I have set my status a total of once ever! My Facebook home page was filled with old high school classmates spouting off things like how much they enjoyed their tea this morning, how rockin' some concert was (miles away from me), or that omg they <3 teh gift someguyidon't know gave them thank you thank you. Trivial and irrelevant, I just didn't care to read this stuff. Many of these friends on Facebook are worth keeping since Facebook is the easiest way to keep track of them, but I just don't care to update myself on the daily details of their lives. As such, I learned to largely ignore the status updates of other people, and I never bothered to post my own. If I didn't care about other people's statuses, why should they care about mine?

And who is going to have the time or motivation to walk over to a computer and log onto a social networking website to type something in before actually doing it? I mean, am I really going to type that I am making coffee and taking a shower every morning?

Over time, technology improved. Text messaging became increasingly popular, which is one method of Twittering. Then the iPhone came out, and people are constantly on the web wherever they are. Even though I don't have a text messaging plan or an iPhone yet, this might change in the near future. This would make it very easy to update my status on the go.

Then Facebook finally implemented functionality for filtering the feed on the home page. I could actually get only the updates from the people I cared about. Now I actually read people's statuses and see that they can be pretty interesting!

Alright, so what does Twitter offer that Facebook doesn't? Well, Facebook is sort of "private" by default. I can only see what my friends are thinking. Twitter, on the other hand, is like a thought hub. It reminds me a little bit of how the Borg might operate, but without the negative Star Trek cannotations. A collective repository of consciousness. The idea intrigues me...

We'll see if the site lives up to my expectations. In any case, I've been assimilated.