5 ms·

> Twitter provides 140 status messages. There is nothing wrong it, that is very cool. But I think there is a realization that it just isn't as cool as it was in

> Twitter provides 140 status messages. There is nothing wrong it, that is very cool. But I think there is a realization that it just isn't as cool as it was in 4 years ago. And it just became 3% less cool. I can't tell if you're being ironic or facile, but Twitter has become quite a bit more than "140 status messages"(sic). It's a medium where politicians, dissidents, celebrities, the hoi palloi, brands, and anarchists all interact. Its a place of record quoted in headline news briefs and long-form journalism. It is used to organize rebellion and restricting access to it is viewed by many as a human rights violation. Twitter as a business has problems, but being a fad isn't one of them.

exstudent2 11y ago
They no longer allow sign ups via Tor, so I don't think it's as dissident friendly as it used to be.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  That's more due to stupid retards abusing tor for spamming... with tor you have to draw the line somewhere.
scrollaway 11y ago
> being a fad isn't one of them. I'd heavily disagree with that. The fad's not over, but it is a fad. The reason it sticks around is that people have an easy way to communicate with celebrities/popular people, and that was certainly not twitter's goal. The moment something better for this comes along, the fad will quickly fade.
gaius 11y ago
... in messages of 140 characters designed to provoke outrage and retweets, not to engage meaningfully with any of the complex issues of the day. Their entire userbase could do a MySpace overnight.
- roye 11y ago
  Twitter is actually becoming quite popular in science. It's a great tool to hear of new papers, find out about new findings reported in conferences you can't attend, and communicate in a public forum. Don't think you would have had much of that in MySpace...
nsgi 11y ago
> restricting access to it is viewed by many as a human rights violation. Restricting access to any website (except in some extreme cases) is viewed by many as a human rights violation. I don't see how Twitter is unique in this respect.

exstudent2 11y ago

They no longer allow sign ups via Tor, so I don't think it's as dissident friendly as it used to be.

mschuster91 11y ago
That's more due to stupid retards abusing tor for spamming... with tor you have to draw the line somewhere.

scrollaway 11y ago

> being a fad isn't one of them. I'd heavily disagree with that. The fad's not over, but it is a fad. The reason it sticks around is that people have an easy way to communicate with celebrities/popular people, and that was certainly not twitter's goal. The moment something better for this comes along, the fad will quickly fade.

gaius 11y ago

... in messages of 140 characters designed to provoke outrage and retweets, not to engage meaningfully with any of the complex issues of the day. Their entire userbase could do a MySpace overnight.

roye 11y ago
Twitter is actually becoming quite popular in science. It's a great tool to hear of new papers, find out about new findings reported in conferences you can't attend, and communicate in a public forum. Don't think you would have had much of that in MySpace...

nsgi 11y ago

> restricting access to it is viewed by many as a human rights violation. Restricting access to any website (except in some extreme cases) is viewed by many as a human rights violation. I don't see how Twitter is unique in this respect.