Chirp your mate

2009-02-06 10:18

Alistair Fairweather

There's a new craze in town, with a cute name, good looks and that untouchable air of cool reserved for the next big thing. Chances are you've heard of it, usually in sentences that end "... and Facebook". Yep, I'm talking (or should that be tweeting?) about Twitter.

It's often called "micro-blogging", but that name is really quite a poor fit. Another common description is "like Facebook status updates," but that normally makes people roll their eyes in disgust.

No, Twitter really is its own beast. The idea is captured most elegantly by the question Twitter asks its tens of millions of users every day: "What are you doing?" In 140 characters or less you tell the world what you're doing, thinking, reading, planning - literally what is happening in our life right then.

Sounds incredibly mundane, right? It can be. You could spend a year trawling through tweets (that's what you do on Twitter, you tweet) with epic subject matter like "Eating toast now, yum" and "Toilet time!"

But that criticism misses the whole beauty of Twitter - it lets you choose who you listen to (or "follow" in the lingo). That means you can hear the daily (often hourly) thoughts of, say, your favourite author or an oil billionaire or Barack Obama (literally). What's more you can answer them - though of course they may not reply.

Still not convinced? What if I told you that Twitter has begun to break news stories before even the internet media? When US Airways flight 1549 landed miraculously in the Hudson river, the first news and pictures came from Janis Crums, an businessman from Sarasota Florida who happened to be in New York on business.

At 10:36 PM on the 15th of January he posted this tweet from his cell phone: "http://twitpic.com/135xa - There's a plane in the Hudson. I'm on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy."

Inside info

Twitter was also instrumental in the coverage of the Mumbai shootings. While journalists were struggling to reach the scenes, and make sense of what was happening, ordinary people were posting pictures of the attackers and up to the minute commentary from inside the hotels.

Because it's is a combination of personal micro-publishing (or broadcasting), and public chat, Twitter spreads messages in a way that human beings are genetically hardcoded to understand and respond to: word of mouth. You know or respect (or are at least interested in) the people you follow, so you are quite likely to listen to them and repeat the most interesting bits of news.

Its 140 character limit, designed to make it work with SMS, is an unintentional virtue. In a world overloaded with lengthy articles and blogs and videos, you have just 30 or 40 words to get your point across - something people often manage with surprising elegance and even beauty. And because the messages are short they are more likely to be read, and spread.

Of course like all social endeavours, Twitter is only as saintly or as flawed as its users. The same power that saved a journalist from an Egyptian jail (he tweeted a single word - "Arrested") can make Twitter a potentially dangerous rumour mill.

It can also be thoroughly myopic and masturbatory, with the same circle of jerks falling over themselves to repeat the latest industry tidbits or bon mots.

Twitter also currently has no way to make any money, but that was true of blogging when it first started and now it's a mainstay of internet publishing around the globe.

What's obvious to nearly everyone who's tried it, is that it is something special. If you look at its components this makes little sense - neither the technology nor the ideas are revolutionary - but that is the genius of a simple idea made real.

And even if all this internet evangelism gets you down, Twitter is actually just a whole lot of fun. Anything that feeds me quips from Stephen Fry, pithy comments from William Shatner and inspiration from Obama all in the five minutes before breakfast has got to be worth a throw.

Send your comments to Alistair.

Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

- News24