Whither Twitter?

When asked, on air, whether he Tweeted, baseball announcer/humorist Bob Uecker responded, "No, thankfully, they have medication for that now." Good call.

I don't get the "phenomenon." Mini posts, limited to 140 characters? "Convenient?" Why the hell would I want to limit myself to 140 characters? What can I say, or read, in 140 characters? Further, couldn't I just do that on this blog? I could update this blog from a cell phone just as easily as I could tweet. And I could do it using full sentences.

Twitter is one of those phenomena created by people who don't understand it. Magazines put it on the cover because it sells like a supermodel or Michelle Obama. CNN uses it to stay "hip." Twitter is not hip. Twitter is what people who can't ever be hip use to try to stay hip.

Twitter is also used by people trying to brand themselves. Real people have nothing to say in 140 characters. Brands can say things like, "omg, shooting green screen all day.  It's the wierdest thing we do." (Ashton Kutcher, the OMG added but believable.)

Twitter is a great marketing tool*. You can get people to follow you on it and then pitch yourself to them several times a day, and some people will eat it right up. But you can't have any serious discourse on it. All you can do is make claims and  refute claims. It's like an Internet chat room with nothing but room for flame wars.

*The greatest Twitter irony is that it serves primarily as a marketing tool, but can't turn a profit for itself.

The fact is the media wants to be in on this social networking that's otherwise its undoing. So they report on the "new, hip" thing, press their own involvement, and start a trend. If I were an old guy who didn't know shit about social networking, but wanted to get involved for my business, I'd probably be drawn to Twitter. After all, it's been on the cover of all those magazines. And CNN talks about it constantly.

I just don't see the big deal. Twitter is like Facebook with only status updates enabled.

I also love the semantics. A single Twitter post is a Tweet. That's because saying, "I just Twittered," sounds dirty. Personally, I think the past tense should be Twat. As in, "I'm going up to to my room to get on my computer and Twat for the world to see."