Twitter

URL = http://twitter.com/

Description

"Twitter allows users to send and receive abbreviated communications or "digital shorthand" from a computer or mobile device. These are called "Tweets." The open-source nature of the application has spawned countless "mash-ups" where Twitter technology merges seamlessly with other open-source technologies such as Google Maps. Widgets and desktop applications such as Twitteroo and Twitterific take you outside of the browser and act as a sort of social instant messenger, sending and receiving rapid bursts of text and links." (http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2007/id20070409_372598_page_2.htm)

Characteristics

Howard Rheingold on why he uses Twitter:

"My reasons:

Openness — anyone can join, and anyone can follow anyone else (unless they restrict access to friends who request access)

Immediacy — it’s a rolling present. You won’t get the sense of Twitter if you just check in once a week. You need to hang out for minutes and hours, every day, to get in the groove.

Variety — political or technical argument, gossip, technical info, news flashes, poetry, social arrangements, classrooms, repartee, scholarly references

Reciprocity — people give and ask freely for information they need (this doesn’t necessarily scale or last forever, but right now it’s possible to tune your list — and to contribute to it — to include a high degree of reciprocation)

A channel to multiple publics — I’m a communicator and have a following that I want to grow and feed. I can get the word out about a new book or vlog post in seconds — and each of the 1300 people who follow me might also feed my memes to their own networks. I used to just paint. Now I document my painting at each stage of the process, upload pix to flickr or flicks to blip.tv, then drop a tinyurl into Twitter. Who needs a gallery or a distributor?

Asymmetry — very interesting. Very few people follow exactly the same people who follow them.

A way to meet new people — it happens every day

A way to find people who share interests — I follow people I don’t know otherwise but who share an interest in educational technology, video, online activism.

A window on what is happening in multiple worlds, some of which I am familiar with, and others that are new to me." (http://www.smartmobs.com/2008/02/23/why-im-hooked-on-twitter/)

Discussion

Twitter as a tool for un-groups

Jennifer Palmer:

"networks. When I’m on Twitter I’m tuning into “collective life streams” as opposed to interacting as a member of a criteria-based group. The fact that Twitter is mobile and able to be used by text messaging via cell phones provides new possibilities for making the most out of “between” moments. Many people find the time to tweet as they travel between the places where groups meet -- in other words, when they are outside of the group and defined only by their individuality. This in turn opens them up to the possibility of finding new groups from far flung places on the social graph. Tweets take place in taxi cabs and in airports, while waiting for trams and waiting for a concert to start. A group could be formed around people who are fans of a movie -- or around passengers stranded together at an airport who use Twitter to craft a “real time” letter of complaint to an airline CEO. Twitter is about being untethered from the world of heavy buildings and offices and computers, but at the same time being aware and informed. The more people you follow, the wider net you cast with which to gather information. I follow fewer people than many and I still hear about most breaking international, national and citywide news from someone on Twitter first.

Twitter is a great tool for DIY, self-organizing “un-groups” such as the stranded airline passengers mentioned above. As the name would imply, an un-group doesn’t have a membership policy or an explicitly agreed upon set of rules and hierarchies. Un-groups aren’t meant to be solemn brother or sisterhoods that one swears an oath to uphold. They are the practical, quick and easy collaborative attempts to solve any number of problems. What’s more, the specificity of the un-groups makes it such that belonging to one doesn’t define you as a person -- perhaps you work as an executive for Phillip Morris trying to figure out how to sell more cigarettes but also coordinate your neighborhood’s recycling efforts in a city or a town where the municipality refuses to do it." (http://www.realitysandwich.com/radical_interdependence_online_telepathy_twitter)

More Information

1. Tag: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens/Twitter
2. Study: What People Do on Twitter: three types of conversations [1]
3. Twitter is a form of Lifelogging, Lifestreaming, Microblogging
4. Aspects of Twitter: Exhaust Data, Phatic Communication, Ambient Intimacy