CléaThe concept was simple. Tweet for a day whatever happened or whatever random thought came to mind worthy of recording. The only proviso was not to tweet about twittering.
The day started off well but life intervened as if karma was foretelling.
Truth be known, I felt like I was talking to myself, hearing the sound of one hand clapping, at pitiful attempts at jokes that weren’t even funny. By early afternoon, in the company of a good latte and conversation, I forgot about the experiment. And when evening came, interest was all but lost.
Squeezing my thoughts into 140 characters or less is like telling an artist to snap a photograph of a moving subject instead of undertaking a life drawing.
Granted, there are people who do it well but to put it simply: It is not for me.
During my brief stint, I got spammed. I had people follow me and remove me as fast as I said the word tweet. I learned that 140 max is not enough, for me, after all, size really does matter.
The face of the interwebs may be changing as blogs fade and evolve into politically correct and mainstream opinions, and one day soon, cbmused may go down the way of geocities. But for now, this bull will keep charging. I have a major personal milestone to reach, even if my readership was reduced to just one. Me.
You tried and you failed, what’s the lesson C?
That’s why I can’t tweet for one whole day. I mean I can put down several tweets a day, but it’s not a replacement for actual blogging because there isn’t enough room to be expressive.
Twitter was never meant to replace blogging, but rather condense what people usually waste time in saying to get to the point. What I don’t get is how people can waste more time reading their Twitter than anything else. That’s just pointless.
So I’ll take it to the next level if I can. Write a tweet, make it worth people’s time to read it. If possible, none of this “what I am doing right this moment” crap that’s been overflowing my Twitter. Good blogs have already evolved past that. I say good Tweeters to keep following have already done that too.
Mrs Mahd: There wasn’t a lesson per se. All it did was validate my original view that I couldn’t be drawn into it. So I thought before someone asks me, How do you know if you don’t try? I’d try it. And found it mostly to be inane banter with short attention span.
Kami: Twitter may not have meant to replace blogging, but in a way it did. As I’ve said it many time of late, blogging is going down the gurgler. It now exists as a sanitised, 98% fate free with high sugar fix. The new contenders in the so-called social networking, FB and Twitter have swayed a lot of bloggers away from it. What’s the catch? In a society that covets the me-me-me philosophy and instant gratification, Twitter delivers. Call me old fashioned, but I never subscribed to trends just because they were trendy, and that applied to any stage of my life. I’ve tried it and we didn’t click.
I ask what makes up a worthy tweet. An announcement of sorts? A form of advertising? A series of tiny urls that you have to click on before you find out where they take you? More spam? It’s just noise filling up cyberspace.
For the time being I’m keeping it, but for a private experiment.
Not exactly spam and noise. At least not if you’re paying attention to the right people. I guess like blogs, I’ve streamlined the content that I want to pay attention to, the links that I click on make sense, just as the things that I read on the blogs I follow. Personally, I don’t mind the shortened urls from the people I follow. There are many ways to make them longer without clicking them though (usually involving Firefox addons or separate Twitter platforms like Tweetdeck).
From where I’m standing at least, good blogs haven’t really died, they are just overwhelmed by the sheer number of people’s vanity. Twitter, like blogs when the fad hit fever pitch, is just another medium, used for both some good as well as stupidity. Surprisingly, Twitter has given me more than an ample amount of good sites to read and web apps to try out.
Twitter is weird. Hi Cléa.
The lesson, my dear, according to The Simpsons, is – never try.
We could MetaTweet about Twittering all day and still not come to the bottom of the question of what makes people Tweet.
I think it is a primordial yearning for a common tribal identity. Either that or everyone is a narcissistic bonehead. Or maybe something in the vast nebulum between those two extremes.
I just find it hard to express myself while up front limiting myself to a certain number of char
Kami: Thanks for your insights, I do appreciate the time you’ve taken to expand on the original comment and my response. The thing is, I’m trying to understand it, and maybe see if I’ve overlooked aspects of it (not just after a 1 day experiment), and I still don’t feel drawn to anything in particular. Sure, I still check some people’s twits, but that’s because like, you, I’ve known fthem for some time.
Peefer: Indeed it is. Hi Peefer.
Mrs Mahd: You, are a very wise woman. I should have listened to my inner Homer!
Zen: From my limited experience, I believe people sit on the sliding scale of what you describe. While it can be an artform, and I use that term loosely, to communicate effectively in 140 max, I find it restrictive.
I’ve resisted the call of Twitter. Lord knows I don’t need any more distractions in life.
Mahd: Wise move. I’m just glad that I didn’t get sucked into it. Too much time wasting of the wrong kind in life.
Yep, just as I suspected.
I have no desire whatsoever to tweet or twit or twirp … or whatever it’s called.
I mean, really? Who gives a twot what my every waking thought is? lol
LB: Exactly. And from my experience none of the tweets were memorable enough to last beyond the moment. Though I have kept my account for the time being.
Yup. That’s exactly how I felt about it. I tried, but I’ve known for a long time that brevity and me don’t mix. So something that limits me to 140 characters? HA!
SM: Some argue that it takes ‘art’ to do it in 140 max, but I’m not one who likes to follow rules!