Count me amongst those who shared that impression...my impression hasn't changed much! It obviously isn't completely stupid or completely useless but its utility is still shockingly low especially when you consider its stock market success.
I am on twitter mainly as a way to promote my company and connect with prospective people, but otherwise the utility of twitter still strikes me as rather low.
It is a good medium for one-to-many (aka broadcast) communication but there aren't enough interesting people in the world to make that a viable option. Not to mention once you start to follow more than 20 people your stream becomes a fire-hose that is not really consumable.
I guess now that it is a public company we'll have to wait and see if it can turn the amount of profit that matches its valuation.
Also stupid/useless and success are not necessarily mutually exclusive, we are talking about humans after all :)
once you start to follow more than 20 people your stream becomes a fire-hose that is not really consumable.
I only feel like people discover the "true" nature of Twitter after they go above 200 follows - it is intended to be saturated consumption like TV, something that can be consumed habitually at any idle moment. There is a Matrix-like quandary in this, in that users who want to filter stop themselves from reaching the point where they see a net-positive outcome. IRC is very similar in that getting the full effect out of it means keeping dozens of channels open.
Maybe you need to get out of the tech-site bubble :)
Yeah, maybe. i don't use social stuff too much, but I'm mostly experienced with enterprise stuff. Not sure how to talk to them, too, or even what their problems really are.
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Well if you think back to the release of twitter the overwhelming response on most tech sites was that it was stupid/useless/waste of time, etc...
("Why would I want SMS restrictions on the web?!")
Maybe you need to get out of the tech-site bubble :)
Count me amongst those who shared that impression...my impression hasn't changed much! It obviously isn't completely stupid or completely useless but its utility is still shockingly low especially when you consider its stock market success.
I am on twitter mainly as a way to promote my company and connect with prospective people, but otherwise the utility of twitter still strikes me as rather low.
It is a good medium for one-to-many (aka broadcast) communication but there aren't enough interesting people in the world to make that a viable option. Not to mention once you start to follow more than 20 people your stream becomes a fire-hose that is not really consumable.
I guess now that it is a public company we'll have to wait and see if it can turn the amount of profit that matches its valuation.
Also stupid/useless and success are not necessarily mutually exclusive, we are talking about humans after all :)
I only feel like people discover the "true" nature of Twitter after they go above 200 follows - it is intended to be saturated consumption like TV, something that can be consumed habitually at any idle moment. There is a Matrix-like quandary in this, in that users who want to filter stop themselves from reaching the point where they see a net-positive outcome. IRC is very similar in that getting the full effect out of it means keeping dozens of channels open.
Yeah, maybe. i don't use social stuff too much, but I'm mostly experienced with enterprise stuff. Not sure how to talk to them, too, or even what their problems really are.