The Globe & Mail’s Margaret Wente had a column in yesterday’s newspaper about how she doesn’t understand why people use Twitter or, for that matter, spend so much time broadcasting the details of their lives using social media tools.
I’ll grant her point that many people spend so much time focused on their digital lives that they spend less time dealing with real people in the real world. However, I will push back on her contention that most Twitter updates are “unspeakably banal”.
Sure, there’s a lot of useless “noise” on Twitter about personal details and activity that’s not interesting to anyone, even the person writing them. Chalk these kind of updates to vanity, boredom, narcissism, the need for a digital fix, or the mistaken belief people really care you’re going to Starbucks for a latte.
But to paint everything on Twitter with a broad stroke of banality is a mistake because it means you haven’t figured out how to make Twitter provide you with value – however you want to define “value”.
For me, Twitter is a professional resource. It’s a way to find newspaper articles (such as Ms. Wente’s), Web sites, and new services, thoughts about technology trends, and answers to questions that I would have otherwise never have seen or received.
I don’t use Twitter to read updates on someone thinking of having coffee at Starbucks, and I don’t do updates about personal details that aren’t worth sharing.
As a journalist trained to find and shape information, Ms. Wente should spend more time on Twitter to explore if there are ways she call pull value out of it. I’m sure, for example, that if Wente did keyword searches on Twitter to research future columns, she would find some valuable nuggets and new sources.
Truth be told, Wente is like a lot of people who sniff their collective noses at something new without really trying it. The sad thing is these kind of people miss out on some really cool and useful things.
(Note: Ms. Wente, if you want to learn more about Twitter, go down the hall and ask one of your colleagues, Mathew Ingram. I’m sure he’ll tell you that Twitter has its uses.)
4 Comments
Perhaps is one only occasionally drops their hook into the Twitter torrent, then I suppose there's a good chance of only pulling up 'unspeakable banality.'
I absolutely love and agree with your "…it means you haven’t figured out how to make Twitter provide you with value – however you want to define “value”. You cannot (to switch metaphors) pan for gold in the raging rapids. Rather, you need to cultivate an area that is controllable and work outwards from there (clearly I've never really panned for gold, but…). You have to "work it" versus dropping a pan in the water and hope to get rich.
On twitter, "working it" means finding people who generally provide content that's valuable. Multiply that times 'many' and you're on your way. Do i find value in every tweet from my [ugh] "tweeps?" No. But by staying involved, I'm finding more and more people who again, on average, contribute real value. It's to the point now where I'm absolutely awash in value – I could spend 24 hours a day on Twitter and get the education of a lifetime from the thoughts and –especially – the links that unrelentingly come my way.
Finally, I've really gotten to know some special people on Twitter, whose personalities are revealed with virtually every tweet. Value? Priceless!!
One of the keys with many online services is spending enough time to really determine whether it has any value.
For Twitter, there has to be a reason why so many people are using it. Wente's pronouncement about Twitter and its lack of value was premature. In time, she may discover it has no value to her but that determination will only come if she really gives it a good go.
Twitter is a great research resource for my public relations firm. I set up search services for alerts on key words (clean tech, biotech, crisis PR, parody, wine, etc.). It's a quick way to find out who is active in a given industry, niche, organization, cause or whatever interests you. From there, you can check the person's profile and get a feel for their depth of knowledge and range of connections. The latter can provide leads for other good resources. I try to follow the experts who provide links to breaking news and trends in an area of interest. They often find great data in obscure places that I would never have found otherwise. I share the information within my agency and also with our clients. We combine it with information we get from RSS feeds and various news trackers. Knowledge is power and Twitter is adding to it.
Yes, there is a lot of banality on Twitter. There's a lot of banality on earth. The beauty of twitter is that it's not necessarily reciprocal. I don't have to follow anybody I don't want to–even if they're following me. So it becomes much more of a meritocracy than, say, Facebook, where I feel like I have to friend you because we went to school together or I used to know your mom.
In defense of Twitter