15 Reasons Twitter Must Die
Posted: December 25th, 2008 | Author: Agitationist | Filed under: buzzwords, tools | Tags: buzzwords, linkbait, micro-fame, neologisms, oversharing, soul-crushing, tools, twitter, useless | 9 Comments »
“What are you doing?”
That’s the question Twitter asks. And it requests your answer in a 140-character text box.
Stay connected with your friends! Be part of a global community! Join the conversation!
No thanks.
Sorry, I know it’s last year’s news, but Twitter sucks. Here is a starter list of reasons why. Please feel free to add your own.
- “What we’re doing” is usually petty, mundane and boring. No one cares what you have for lunch, even if you are Shaquille O’Neal. You are just not as important as you think you are. I say this with love.
- Random replies and disjointed conversations that make no sense to anyone else, except when arranged in a thread by a plug-in, add-on or widget. It’s like instant messaging without features!
- The inevitable plug-ins, add-ons and widgets to make Twitter useful. If it’s not useful in the first place, why use it?
- If you can express it in 140 characters, it probably took less time to actually do it live than to “tweet” it. Whatever you said you were doing, you just stopped to tweet about it.
- The word “tweet“.
- Text messaging achieves the same purpose without sending your micro-details to everyone. Anywhere else that’s called “spamming”. Yes, I know they opted in as your “followers“, but they’ll be opting back out soon enough.
- “Following” someone is not healthy, whether you’re a stalker, a cult member or a Twitter user.
- Transparency is not always good. Public toilets should not have glass walls. The word of the year for 2008: “oversharing“.
- The word of 2009: “micro-fame“. You heard it here first. It’s somewhere below reality show fame, and just above getting your mug shot on the Smoking Gun. I also predict this will lead to the unfortunate word of 2010: “micro-lame”.
- Twitter is cutesy and bubbly and looks like a toy. Because it is a toy.
- “But the San Diego fires/San Francisco mudslides/(insert big news) story was broken on Twitter!” Fine, but shouldn’t those people have called 911 and then maybe tried to help, instead of attempting to gain some micro-fame (see?) by “breaking” a story we all would have heard about 5 minutes later?
- The inevitable “I was fired because I Twittered about my employer” lawsuit and “Twitter addiction” news stories.
- The constant conversation about ”how to monetize Twitter“, and the inevitable $19.95 e-book to explain how it can make you rich with little or no effort.
- The more popular it gets, the worse it gets. I’m no elitist (well, maybe), but have you looked at MySpace lately? QED.
- Twitter is just another tool to replace the voices in your head, ignore your soul-crushing job, and numb you to the yawning chasm of emptiness that is your life.
And did I mention the word “tweet“?
While I do agree that certain aspects of Twitter can be questioned, I find it an invaluable tool to stay connected with people you care about (but do not have time to constantly text with) or getting connected with new people.
Several of your points ARE valid, but they can be avoided by simple and common-sense methods for usage: surely, public bathrooms should not have glass walls, but no one is *forcing* anyone to actually share whatever comes into your mind? — Twitter is giving us the tool to tweet from the loo (or from anywhere else) but with some common sense, we can choose not to use it for oversharing…
Oh yes. And I can be found at @selig
Selig: Nowhere do I claim that anyone is *forced* to use Twitter. It is a *choice* like everything else. My argument is that it’s not a good choice.
Phil: I like your attitude! Especially the 2002 bit. I posted a response on your blog.
Ari: Thanks for calling me a “dolt” on your Twitter feed. That’s a high compliment from someone who micro-blogs about watching the “Garfield” the movie. And thanks for linking here as well.
Thanks for the linkbait. Feel free to use the comments section of blogs to linkbait and contribute nothing. I know I can always use a journey back to 2002.
You’re right about Twitter. All 15 points, except #9. Kinda lame (but that’s OK, we all have our moments of lame.)
Since you took the time to write 15 reasons why Twitter sucks, could you think of 1 reason why Twitter might be a game-changer? It’s frivolous and stupid. No doubt about it. But so is Google. Curious, that’s all.
You should be on Twitter more often. I’m a Jackass on Twitter mostly, so why not join the Jacasssing? I just followed Selig; looks like a smart man and probably is mature enough to enjoy Twitter’s frivolity.
If you want me to re-tweet the post, @ me @PhilBaumann.
Selig: Twitter encourages short attention span thinking, lousy communication, and pointless conversation.
Imagine if we had this awesome new tool that connected everybody and was instantaneous, but…you could only write in haikus. It would be a fad for a while, and then find its natural place as a toy.
No one has refuted a single point above, or pointed out what twitter can do which can’t be done elsewhere. It’s a fad, not a tool.
For crying out loud, everyone’s going apeshit on the web because Twitter just got a search function. A search function! Web 3.0 here we come!
Hi whatever your name is and whoever you are on Twitter, but like Phil, thanks for linkbaiting me.
Since you took the time to post a comment on my blog, I figured I owe you a response in return.
1. I don’t want to know what you’re doing, either. I want to know what you’re accomplishing, what links are valuable to you, which people are insightful to you, how you feel about marketing and networking, and other bits.
2. If you don’t like the verb, “to tweet,” do you have an alternative that is short and succinct? I’m all ears. “to twitter message” doesn’t have the right ring.
3. On Twitter, one opts to follow another. It’s not a forced decision. And there’s no rule you have to tweet to your followers; you can have a follower base of zero and tweet to yourself, but where’s the value in that?
4. Follow me at http://twitter.com/ariherzog if you want. My tweets are far different in style and purpose than Shaq’s.
jwalker: true, you do not claim that anyone is *forced* to make bad choices. But isn’t it the bad choices that should be criticized instead of the possibility to choose?
Twitter provides us with a possibility to make stupid choices, yes, undoubtedly — but so does the entire web (and even life as such). Does that make the entire web (or life) something negative?
To be honest, I assume this post is just an attempt at humour;the attempt to knock twitter using the classic “why do the lower classes need telephones?” argument of the 1920s.
However, you were requesting refutation. OK.
1. What you had for lunch is unlikely to be zeitgeist illuminating, but what you are reading or working on might be. Certainly, how you are escaping Mumbai was certainly of interest to many.
Your argument is based on the idea that people will join a micro blogging medium – then abuse it. Not true.
2. Twitter has its own http://twitter.com/tencommandments concerning “conversations”. Again, you assume everyone is incapable of using the service properly.
3. Because the service is open, it can be improved. Hence apps like Tweetdeck. The point is, Twitter is a service, not a website.
4. “I have written a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one”. Yes, brief writing is a skill. And yes, like a journalist you live first, report later.
5. I think “tweet” is self-deprecating enough.
6. The rate of Twitter growth does not support your point now, does it?
7. I don’t like the term “following” either. But I know what they are getting at, so that’s fine for now.
8. Overshare! How very Californian. Probably a habit that Twitter is riding, not the other way around. Maybe a touch of sexism too?
9. “Micro-blogging” was never going to catch on as a term. Should die this year.
10. And Google is a toy too. Right.
11. I don’t know anyone who would use a social medium before calling the cops!
12. Yup, oversharing has a real downside. Now that is a debate.
13. Yeah, the money stuff is circular and pointless. It should be, but can’t be, free.
14. No I haven’t looked at MySpace. Ever.
15. Open communcation is usually a good thing. Sadly, you get what you put in, so its not great for sociopaths.
DE: Some good points, some weak. I put our scores about even. Not sure how you worked classism and sexism into this though.
In any case, I think you’re talking about the Twitter that should exist, not the one that actually does. If we could see a word cloud of all Twitter conversations at a given moment, I think we’d both be pessimistic about humanity’s future.
However, I’m surprised at your elitism regarding MySpace. Don’t your arguments about Twitter apply there as well?
Also, since you appear to be British, I’m obligated to inform you that “Californian” is actually a clichéd term without real meaning.
Enjoyed your blog.