QotW7: The Survival of Twitter ...
According to Wikipedia (Twitter, 2007), Twitter is a social networking service that allows members to inform each other about what they are doing and what they think. It also allows users to send messages via phone or instant messaging.
Then, what is the notion of an online community? Virtual communities form when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships (Rheingold, 2000).
I personally would consider Twitter as an online community where friends or even strangers connect through a service by answering one question, “What are you doing?”, and people can answer your question via your phone, instant messaging or directly via Twitter’s webpage (Twitter, 2007).
The structural process associated with online community is communication. With communication, there will then be action to organize social relations (Fernback & Thompson, 1995). Thus, possessing the means of communication, where people could reply each other, Twitter is indeed an online community.
When I have successful signing up for Twitter, I felt so lost about the functions of Twitter. Twitter did not live up to my expectations of other social networking services like Friendster or MySpace. Rather I felt the services of Twitter were rather lousy as compared to the rest. Strangers could see what ever that is posted. Anyone could add anybody. And since anyone could add anybody, you can see everyone’s post. In fact, I felt it was rather messy, as in the topics do not follow a thread-like forum. Everything were just in chronological order and thus, imagine everyone talking about different topics, it will be quite difficult to see what is going on.
There has been this blog post about Twitter flaming out before the end of 2007 and I totally agree with the writer. According to Balez (Balez, 2007), there are three main points why Twitter will not survive. Firstly, there is no value in twitter, as in there is no deep content, nothing to learn, and no reason to going back to using the service. Secondly, Twitter requires quite an amount of effort. People are lazy, and Twitter requires time, effort and attention to read through the postings. Lastly, key users will bail, similar to the double-edged sword of network effects. These are potential reasons why Twitter cannot survive and I myself agree with them, as this is exactly how I feel with using Twitter.
Wikipedia do also states that Twitter is experiencing different problems and challenges such as eliciting mixed-feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been the early users of Twitter. Twitter users feel that it is a good way to stay connected with friends, especially when you have a busy schedule, but, some users felt they became too connected with Twitter as they check in to Twitter at odd hours, and also incurred higher hand phone bills because of using the services of Twitter.
Thus, Twitter could have been a favorite among other social network users, but to me, Twitter is one service that I will never use again, unless the services of Twitter are improved. I just do not like that fact that I have to read through every single posting. It is just too time consuming. I should prefer the traditional thread-like forum where I can selectively read or reply what I want to read or reply.
REFERENCE ...
Balez, M. (2007, March 14). RIP Twitter (2007-2007). Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://web1979.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/rip-twitter-2007-2007/
Fernback, J. & Thompson, Brad. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html
Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/intro.html
Twitter. (2007, March 16). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
Twitter. (2007). Twitter: What are you doing? Obvious. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://twitter.com/
Then, what is the notion of an online community? Virtual communities form when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships (Rheingold, 2000).
I personally would consider Twitter as an online community where friends or even strangers connect through a service by answering one question, “What are you doing?”, and people can answer your question via your phone, instant messaging or directly via Twitter’s webpage (Twitter, 2007).
The structural process associated with online community is communication. With communication, there will then be action to organize social relations (Fernback & Thompson, 1995). Thus, possessing the means of communication, where people could reply each other, Twitter is indeed an online community.
When I have successful signing up for Twitter, I felt so lost about the functions of Twitter. Twitter did not live up to my expectations of other social networking services like Friendster or MySpace. Rather I felt the services of Twitter were rather lousy as compared to the rest. Strangers could see what ever that is posted. Anyone could add anybody. And since anyone could add anybody, you can see everyone’s post. In fact, I felt it was rather messy, as in the topics do not follow a thread-like forum. Everything were just in chronological order and thus, imagine everyone talking about different topics, it will be quite difficult to see what is going on.
There has been this blog post about Twitter flaming out before the end of 2007 and I totally agree with the writer. According to Balez (Balez, 2007), there are three main points why Twitter will not survive. Firstly, there is no value in twitter, as in there is no deep content, nothing to learn, and no reason to going back to using the service. Secondly, Twitter requires quite an amount of effort. People are lazy, and Twitter requires time, effort and attention to read through the postings. Lastly, key users will bail, similar to the double-edged sword of network effects. These are potential reasons why Twitter cannot survive and I myself agree with them, as this is exactly how I feel with using Twitter.
Wikipedia do also states that Twitter is experiencing different problems and challenges such as eliciting mixed-feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been the early users of Twitter. Twitter users feel that it is a good way to stay connected with friends, especially when you have a busy schedule, but, some users felt they became too connected with Twitter as they check in to Twitter at odd hours, and also incurred higher hand phone bills because of using the services of Twitter.
Thus, Twitter could have been a favorite among other social network users, but to me, Twitter is one service that I will never use again, unless the services of Twitter are improved. I just do not like that fact that I have to read through every single posting. It is just too time consuming. I should prefer the traditional thread-like forum where I can selectively read or reply what I want to read or reply.
REFERENCE ...
Balez, M. (2007, March 14). RIP Twitter (2007-2007). Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://web1979.wordpress.com/2007/03/14/rip-twitter-2007-2007/
Fernback, J. & Thompson, Brad. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.html
Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/intro.html
Twitter. (2007, March 16). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
Twitter. (2007). Twitter: What are you doing? Obvious. Retrieved March 17, 2007, from http://twitter.com/
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