People who constantly update their Facebook statuses with boring details about their lives that very few other people, if any, actually care about, drive me crazy.
I don't care that you like/love your boyfriend/girlfriend. I assume you do.
I don't care that you don't feel like going to work. Neither do I.
And I don't care that you are confused/upset/angry/discouraged. You are only posting that so someone will ask you why.
The above is why the extent of my status updates on Facebook generally consist of plugging my blog or my photography website.
And then yesterday I signed up for Twitter. Having banged around on the site for a bit, I've got to say I'm pleased that someone managed to take the status update concept and turn it into something useful. Basically, as far as I can tell, Twitter is just the status portion of Facebook, which rids you of all the creepy stalker stuff and 16-year-olds who take endless self-portraits of themselves for the sole purpose of a FB album.
Now, I still don't really care about the average person's status updates. (Again, if it's 1 p.m. on a Wednesday, I assume you are at work, so posting that you're at work is kind of redundant.) But I've already found many useful people to follow (if you don't understand what that means you are out of touch and should look it up) on Twitter where the updates are actually interesting.
With this tool, you can follow news sites, entertainment sites, celebrities, tech-savvy politicians, etc. and get quick and informative updates in 140 words or less. From what I can see, many news sites (CBC, CTV, etc.) are using it to frequently post headlines of big stories, and that's awesome. It saves me the time from having to screw around on sometimes less-than-stellar websites to find stuff. A former journalism professor of mine has posted links to websites useful to anyone in the business and that is also very cool. I also think it will be even more useful once more people catch on and those boring "I'm at work" status updates may actually become useful. For example, you're trying to track down a friend, you can check their Twitter feed to find out, they are in fact on their way to meet you, assuming they have updated their account.
So again, here's another online tool for people to keep tabs on us wherever we are, but so far it seems this one could significantly more useful, and a lot less violating, than Facebook.
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1 comment:
Myspace, Facebook, Twitter... They'll keep coming and as one new fad comes into play another will fall to the side. At their best these sites can help you stay in touch with others; at worst they consume your life. Whatever happened to sending letters?
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