it will be financially profitable
I just tweeted the following:
Twitter Users: please take a #contentpledge to always say something meaningful with tweets. I.E. no “@dansanders wonders *if*…”
I really don’t understand why people use a service that is limited to 140 characters and still choose to say nothing. For instance, I got the following off the Twitter public timeline over a two-minute period – mind you, other than the username, these are exact, word-for-word:
- “ ok why isn’t this site updating again”
- “Cleaning my room….This sucks ¬¬”
- “right dinner time”
- “my feet are freezing”
- “Skype is horrible at times.”
- “fml ? D:”
- “Thu Dec 17 21:27:01 2009″
These were not @replies, either. These were just “out there.”
Now, I realize that this post could be construed as the same type of lack-of-content, only more lengthy (and I fully expect that judgment from one of you *ahem@The_Kellwood*), but if Twitter doesn’t DO something, there will never be investors. And if there are no investors, Twitter will go away. And I like Twitter.
I mean, you know, just perhaps…
I am reminded of my own irritation with my grad class recently; it was so much posturing and “Aren’t I ironic with my clever opinions.” I find I’m older-school about language and speech and its uses — I want it revered in some way, practiced as an art form and not dumbed down, at least not for publication. (Since I dumb it down with profanity on a frequent basis, ha!)
That said, there is a multiplicity to Twitter’s uses that exceeds the “opinion-based” or information sharing for which you or I use it. I know film-makers who use it to communicate with their site location staff. Some use it for requesting solutions, a la the “why isn’t this site updating.” I suppose I myself used it in similar fashion today when I asked about online data storage recommendations.
Despite your desire (and mine, frankly) that this modality “rise above” its current population of users, it has become lots of different things to lots of different people. Briefly, I followed writers who use it to write stories! Ultimately, it’s merely a communication device. It’s like a visual walky-talky, it seems, and watching the communication timelines reveals it as exactly that — multiple layers of meaningless communication that when only viewed in snippet form seem that much more meaningless. (If such depth is truly possible, lol!) It’s like tuning in to too many party lines simultaneously.
As to how money can be made? I can think of a few, and none of them involve ads. Craig’s List has remained free to the non-commercial user because it pushes fee-services onto deeper pockets; i.e., you want to post an ad to hire an employee? There’s a nominal fee. But it’s free to the job seekers. A respondeat superior, if you will. It seems to me that the Folger’s and the Oprah’s and the Ellen’s and the movie Tweeters will be asked to buy accounts. It’s part of their advertising budget anyway.
I don’t think profanity “dumbs down” language if it is clear someone has a command of it otherwise. I think being able to craft a sentence like “That professor sure is peripatetic fucker” still shows a mastery most don’t have. But yes, I agree that language needs to be respected. “Dumbed down” is what you hear on MTV and the radio nowadays.
I agree with your sentiment in the third paragraph, but those sorts of people use that mode systemically; they don’t suffer from a dearth of cerebral activity, which is apparent in their Tweet history. It’s the otherwise mentally-capable that just fire off a “is wondering about things” Tweet that turn my taste buds off.
Sounds like a plan (the corp ID accounts). Like I say, capitalism works.
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