To Twitter or not to Twitter, that is the question.
I just read an article about Twitter on the Houston Chronicle, and have to wonder what the deal with this person is. Loren Steffy starts the article by saying: “I do not Twitter.” And then she goes on about why Twitter is messed up and the cause of the dumbing down of America.
Who in their right mind can write a negative article about a product, or website in this case, and not try it out? It seems very strange to me. Is there a hidden agenda? Is she stealing a page from the John C. Dvorak book of creative writing? John is famous for writing negative columns about products that people are passionate about, which in turn, helps his name get out there and his columns get more traffic from people who love to hate his stuff… and people who just love to watch the antagonism.
Well Loren, we already have a Dvorak, you should figure out a new strategy… or, here’s a thought, learn how to use the web and then write about it.
Twitter comes alive for people who have friends who use Twitter. It’s a strange new beast, and I don’t blame Loren for not “getting it”, after all it’s like a mash-up of Instant Messaging and Blogging. You can choose to broadcast your Tweets to the entire world, or just to your group of friends. And your can chose which people you want to “follow”, thus receiving all their status updates live, plus a list of all their previous tweets in case you missed something important.
Loren I don’t blame you for not understanding the concept behind Twitter, but I do blame you for bad-mouthing something you don’t understand and have no idea how useful it can be to some people. It’s like saying Braille is a stupid technology, simply because you have no need for it, or saying that e-mail is overrated because everyone can just send a letter in the mail.
I suggest you get some friends, get an account on Twitter, make an effort to use it for a couple of weeks, and THEN tell us what you think. You may still not like it, but at least your arguments will be convincing and worthy of print.
Thanks to Dave Winer for the “heads up” on the article which, by the way, he posted on Twitter.
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