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Tangentially, I find myself in the mainstream about Twitter. I tried it for a few weeks and couldn't figure out what it was for, what was actionable (my favouri

Tangentially, I find myself in the mainstream about Twitter. I tried it for a few weeks and couldn't figure out what it was for, what was actionable (my favourite word from my go-go thirties) about it. It felt like Facebook status updates with wimpy group chat on a quad short espresso. Which made me feel old. Whenever throngs of people love something and I can't figure out what it's for, I immediately think of mainframe programmers sking what on Earth anyone would ever want to do with an 8 bit microprocessor, a couple of K of memory, and a paper tape reader.

mattmaroon 18y ago
Get your damn tweets off my lawn!
jamesbritt 18y ago
I was disdainful of Twitter for some time, then decide to make an effort to try it out in earnest. It seemed useful for a while, but then the signal to noise ratio is was so dismal I started dropping people from my "follow" list. What may be of real value are the assorted tools and sites that have spring up around it, where I can get more targeted datage. I'm a fan of serendipity and the use of noise to disturb mental stasis but there's a limit to how much self-absorbed minutia I can wade past.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  My experience was pretty similar. I found that you either have to spend hours a day on it, or it's just no fun at all, and who has that kind of time?
run4yourlives 18y ago
Which made me feel old. This is the funny thing though: the majority of people out there are all older than us! I'm the last of the gen xers, (75) and I can still say that. With something like twitter that needs to be popular to stay alive; if my initial reaction is "I feel old because I don't get it", that's not a good sign.
- ph0rque 18y ago
  > This is the funny thing though: the majority of people out there are all older than us! But less so with each passing moment...
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  It's not a bad sign either though, because time spent online is almost inversely proportional to age. If you appeal to the younger half of the online population, you're still only losing maybe 1/4 of the audience.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Except that retirees are the largest growing segment of internet users... and the boomers haven't really retired yet, and are more familiar with computers than those who barely used them at work.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      It doesn't matter. There were enough people on the internet 3 years ago for a product to be wildly successful. Even if 0 of the older people use Twitter, their potential audience is more than large enough. A product doesn't have to appeal to 100% of the population to be successful. It does to be Coke or McDonald's or Google successful, but you can still make a shit ton of money by only appealing to 50%.
fallentimes 18y ago
But Britney's on twitter!

mattmaroon 18y ago

Get your damn tweets off my lawn!

jamesbritt 18y ago

I was disdainful of Twitter for some time, then decide to make an effort to try it out in earnest. It seemed useful for a while, but then the signal to noise ratio is was so dismal I started dropping people from my "follow" list. What may be of real value are the assorted tools and sites that have spring up around it, where I can get more targeted datage. I'm a fan of serendipity and the use of noise to disturb mental stasis but there's a limit to how much self-absorbed minutia I can wade past.

mattmaroon 18y ago
My experience was pretty similar. I found that you either have to spend hours a day on it, or it's just no fun at all, and who has that kind of time?

run4yourlives 18y ago

Which made me feel old. This is the funny thing though: the majority of people out there are all older than us! I'm the last of the gen xers, (75) and I can still say that. With something like twitter that needs to be popular to stay alive; if my initial reaction is "I feel old because I don't get it", that's not a good sign.

ph0rque 18y ago
> This is the funny thing though: the majority of people out there are all older than us! But less so with each passing moment...
mattmaroon 18y ago
It's not a bad sign either though, because time spent online is almost inversely proportional to age. If you appeal to the younger half of the online population, you're still only losing maybe 1/4 of the audience.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Except that retirees are the largest growing segment of internet users... and the boomers haven't really retired yet, and are more familiar with computers than those who barely used them at work.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    It doesn't matter. There were enough people on the internet 3 years ago for a product to be wildly successful. Even if 0 of the older people use Twitter, their potential audience is more than large enough. A product doesn't have to appeal to 100% of the population to be successful. It does to be Coke or McDonald's or Google successful, but you can still make a shit ton of money by only appealing to 50%.

fallentimes 18y ago

But Britney's on twitter!