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I have a theory that one of the things that makes twitter appealing to many people is it's ephemeral nature. Seen this way it's historical flakiness is actually
by olefoo 17y ago
I have a theory that one of the things that makes twitter appealing to many people is it's ephemeral nature. Seen this way it's historical flakiness is actually one of the the things that makes it popular. Whether valid or not, there is a sense in which twitter seems to be a good venue for casual social messages that aren't going to be archived and potentially used against you at some later date. Whereas facebook (again validly or not) sends a message that this is the repository of your accomplishments, and that it will be your permanent record.
The thing is that as human beings we need both fireproof digital libraries that can keep our memories safe, and the electronic equivalent of the floating world where the record of what was said evaporates with the morning dew.
- TimothyFitz 17y agoYou can see this principle at work in how 2ch/4chan's ephemeral nature shaped the behaviors of their users (and thus their culture).
- novum 17y agoI don't think it's quite accurate to call Twitter ephemeral, though. All kinds of third-party services are trying to index and archive as many tweets as possible, plus there's always the possibility that Twitter will cut a more formal deal with Google (or any other search engine). Plus, there have been numerous documented instances where deleted tweets can still be found by Twitter's own search engine. In short, the old rule of thumb still applies: if you don't want it archived and indexed and preserved forever, don't put it online in the first place.
- thwarted 17y agoIt's the _perception_ of ephemeral, through the UI and the way twitter presents "real-time" (most recent first, difficult to scroll through older stuff, less than stellar search (at least compared to other services)).