What I Think of Twitter

Twitter, although having been around since 2006, has recently gained major popularity in the last few months thanks to celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey. Twitter is essentially a mini-blog site that allows users to type short 140-character “blog” updates which are sent to all of the people that are currently “following” that user; it’s almost like sending all your friends a text message every time you do something, whether it is interesting or not. Like most blog sites, Twitter is free and able to be viewed by anyone who is not a member. Like most things, there are definite advantages and disadvantages to a site like Twitter. One excellent example I can think of that shows how useful twitter can be, would be David White’s (Oakland Raiders beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle) twitter. During the Raider’s optional Mini-Camp that was held last weekend, he was able to use his Twitter account on his phone to update followers on what was going on, play by play, at the camp. This is interesting because before Twitter, a reporter could only observe and take notes during the camps and then later write the story that would appear in the newspaper. Now, everything happens in real-time, allowing Raider fans to get an instant inside scoop of what’s going, without having to wait the next day for the newspaper story. As for disadvantages, I think it would feel somewhat strange to have potentially thousands of people I never met before, reading my updates; but then again, that could be one of the reasons someone would sign up for Twitter in the first place. Overall, I think that the positives outweigh the negatives for mini-blog sites such as Twitter. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that maybe Twitter could become the next Myspace.