Twits, Tweeting and Twitter

 

So I’m all hyper-connected, as previously discussed. I still get all my nearest and dearest whenever they happen to be available, playing at all manner of stupidity and sharing all necessary information on Facebook. And adding both Twitter and Bebo, and then linking all four of my online activities together has meant I’m getting more people reading my poetry. (Excellent! It’s secretly why I write it…) But in several conversations, Facebook status updates and SMS, there appears a common theme in recent days; WTF is Twitter about?

I know exactly what it is about. Took a bit of time, and a few nights taking advantage of my insomnia trawling through Twitter and the complete nonsense that constitutes a conversation therein. I’m going to take a moment to explain what I’ve worked out and laugh out loud at the Twits of the world who exist solely for that purpose.

There are two sorts of people doing the twittering. Twits and Tweeters.

The Twit:

These people are everywhere. They are having ‘RT @perezhilton @ some_random_twit’ conversations. And they need only 140 characters to do so, most of which is taken up by the page url on which they are having said conversation, and the url of the twit they are replying to. As you can imagine it’s a nightmare to follow and isn’t exactly meaty, indepth conversation. Twits follow everyone mentioned anywhere even once. Example this week, Susan Boyle. And twitter about it amongst themselves. I don’t care, I don’t want to know.

A friend of mine asked the question whilst we mused social networking sites over coffee this week, “do we really want everyone to know? Does me brushing my teeth make you feel closer to me?” The answer of course is no. I don’t care. I don’t want to know. And if you think I do, and if you feel ‘closer’ to others in this way, then you are a Twit. If you are  following only two twits, your entire home page, and Facebook home page will be swallowed whole with what Twitter actually marketed the site as; a blow by blow account of life, day in, day out. And all the mindless chatter between all the other twits they follow. I occurred to me that if James Joyce were alive today he would have never written Ulysses. He would have twittered the whole thing. And it would be just as boring.

The Tweeter:

These people have more followers than they are following. They understand Twitters real power, as the most effective marketing tool we’ve seen in a long time. Sure, Oprah is following Mrs Kutcher, The Real Shaq and Larry King, but she’s not following you. She’s following The New York Times and The Washington Post. And when she happens to reply to Demi it’s pure mutual admiration celebrity cult style. My favourite had to be “@kingsthings hey Larry, wanted to tweet you on the show tonite. But will be in the air. Not sure about airtweets. Have fun with Ashton!”

There are other celebs, as well as the above mentioned, Britney and Ryan Seacrest are very popular, and for the most part they are the tweeters and when others like managers etc tweet for them, the reader gets a heads up. For example @britneyspears “The Kardashians were under the big top checking out the show tonight…. -Adam Leber, Manager”. Considerate, all considered. All in all the celebrity tweeter is just marketing. Plain and simple.

But if like me, you don’t care whether or not Demi and Ashton are happy in love, what the hell are you logging on to look at?

The (Dynamic) Tweeter:

Sometimes celebrity /social commentators / organizations and businesses, but mostly these are the big guns. They don’t respond. They have nothing to say to Mrs Kutcher. They are The New York Times and The Washington Post. For Aussies you can also find The Australian and any several other major publications. One line tweets, a headline and a URL to their website. Brilliant. They follow others, each other mostly, and occasionally Oprah et al, lest some amazing news story breaks there. Celebrity sells after all. But they are not replying. They Tweet. All day, every day. That’s it. Click the URL, read the news/article/review. Its brilliant.

And that’s what Twitter is all about. Having never followed an RSS feed in my life, nor could I be arsed to have my inbox flooded with news stories I’ve been drifting further and further away from good ol’ fashioned news. Now I’ve a place full of headlines in several languages, from multiple continents pertaining to only things I am interested in.

And David Attenborough.

And a few choice friends.

And am I a Twit or a Tweeter? I twitter. But I’m taking the NYT approach. It’s about me, and not my bathroom habits. After all, I’m not selling toothbrushes. And my personal hygiene, whilst brilliant, has little to do with poetry and philosophy, culture and society. If I’m going in for blatant, unadulterated self promotion, I’m going for class. And avoiding meaningless chatter with Twits wherever possible.

The upside is getting in with the multi-lingual crowd before Twitter reaches the non-English speaking world. Deciding to counterweight my news and practice my German, I now follow Das Journal. Me and 32 other people. And Das Journal are now following me.

As they should.

Bis nächste Zeit, tschüs!

Twit or Tweeter, can you spot the difference?

10 Most extraordinary Twitter Updates