Before I ramble, let me qualify by pointing out that this may very well be common knowledge amongst the few enlightened individuals out there that “get it.” I fully and completely admit that I quite simply didn’t get it (and I probably still don’t). I’ve been on Twitter for a while now, taking mental note of what’s going on and how it works. I think I can communicate the essence of what Twitter is, in one simple word.

Everything I’ve experienced with Twitter thus far has enforced the idea that it’s all about the present, give or take the last 12 hours or so. People could care less about what happened on Twitter before then. I haven’t seen anyone retweet something that’s older. Trending topics only seem to cover that time span as well.

It’s NOT an archive. It’s NOT a storage space, or a “traditional” online community that’s geared towards sifting through past content. It’s a constant stream of peoples’ personal bi-lines and reference links that … for reasons that still elude me, seem to generate interest. I’m not exclusive from that group either. I’ve often found myself responding and contributing to that stream just as everyone else is.

Maybe there’s nothing to explicitly understand. Perhaps Twitter is no different than conversation amongst large groups of people in an offline context as well. Now there’s a thought. What would conversation look like if I were to say, plonk myself down in the middle of a busy courtyard or some other meeting place where people engage each other. Would it be the similar?

… more to come.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 12:16 pm and is filed under social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.