Sunday, April 19, 2009

The best about Twitter essay

Farhad Manjoo has written the best "what is twitter good for?" essay to date.

I say that because I agree with him. For example ...
The reluctant Twitterer's dilemma. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

... But if you're not into that, Twitter doesn't seem to offer much that you can't already get elsewhere—for instance, at Facebook. A few months ago, I urged readers to join the social network because you could no longer mistake it for a passing craze; Facebook, I argued, is now a permanent part of the culture, as critical to modern society as e-mail and the cell phone. Since then, to much annoyance, Facebook has redesigned its site to be more Twitter-like. These changes diminish Twitter's attractiveness: Are you just looking for a way to occasionally send a mass message to your friends? Facebook, where you've already established a circle of followers, can be a much faster way of doing so—especially now that it looks so much like Twitter...
I like the comment on how FB's redesign wounds Twitter. Personally, I've found Twitter most useful as a convenient way to post status updates to FB (using the FB Twitter app) -- and to one friend (that's you M.) who prefers Twitter to FB.

Oh, what's FB good for? Well, past about forty or so, it's pleasant to just know one's friends are up and about. FB is a severe "data lock" play -- I don't put anything there I'm attached to.

Farhad's essay a Twitter cheat sheet that explains, among other things, the # convention for tweet tagging.

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