Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

jansegers — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:30:28 -0000

Every major language seems to have its microblogs these days...

but all accept English language posting with an English URL included

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

Tim Burden — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:13:00 -0000

Oh, for sure, and I'm not trying to crap on people for using whatever they want to use. Personally, my problem with it appears to be twofold:
1. signal/noise ratio
2. work in building a network

That last one is a bit of a Catch-22 - I don't want to put a lot of work into it until I see the value of it, and I probably won't see the value in it until I build up a network. In the meantime, I see a lot of stuff about Clinton/Obama (ahem - Dave Winer) and other stuff that doesn't interest me per se. And my friends and fellow students and journalists (except you, kind sir) don't seem to be on there.

I want services that help me sort through all the available information quickly. Twitter doesn't do that for me. It's like a big chat room. I thought chat rooms went away in the 90's :)

The difference now is that I can chat on there with my cell phone. Except I don't have a cell phone. Damn, you're right, I am NOT cool! :)

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

mathewi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:54:02 -0000

And I guess I would answer that different people like to be informed
about different things, in different ways. Sometimes it's a big news
event, sometimes it's a quirky story, sometimes it's a personal update
from a friend. Different purposes, different methods.

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

Tim Burden — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:37:54 -0000

Staying as informed as possible, if I had to put it as succinctly as possible.

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

mathewi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:18:03 -0000

Well, I could argue that connecting computers together is what the
Internet *is*, not what it's *for*. But still -- what are the Web and
social networks for?

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

Tim Burden — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:15:34 -0000

Or maybe I'm uber-cool, for calling it. :)

The Internet is for connecting computers together. On top of which you can build things like the Web and social networks. And?

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

mathewi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:14:03 -0000

I agree, Engtech :-)

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

engtech — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:10:04 -0000

SGF is such a better term than "The Network Effect"

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

mathewi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:05:03 -0000

Glad you like it, Steven -- just give me $5 every time you use it :-)

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

StevenHodson — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:38:18 -0000

Soylent Green factor .... I so like that phrase Mathew

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

mathewi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:22:04 -0000

Fair enough, Tim. Just admit that you're not cool enough to get
Twitter. As for what's wrong with email, that would take a book :-)

Seriously though, it's not for everyone. I think it's a lot like text
messaging is for a generation younger than ours (or at least mine).
Why do they do it? Who knows. Different reasons, I guess. Some are
purely social, some are not -- in some cases it's broadcast, in other
cases it's a way to get input. Sometimes it's informative, sometimes
it's not.

What's the Internet for?

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

Tim Burden — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:14:40 -0000

I have to admit to some trouble understanding the usefulness of Twitter. Maybe I haven't built a big enough network, or maybe I don't get it on some more fundamental level.

What was wrong with email? Well, one might say, one isn't likely to email all one's friends (or casual acquaintances or people you don't even know) to tell them you are watching Battlestar right now. Well, quite frankly, I'm not that interested when I see that on Twitter, either.

To be notified of new blog posts, why wouldn't I just subscribe to someone's RSS feed rather than follow them on Twitter? And anyway, as the recent mantra goes, the news will find me. Twitter just looks like work to me.

And Jake has a good point about connecting with the non-techie non-bloggers: they're not using Twitter, they're using Facebook. You can do more stuff there, and you don't feel like you have to update every sneeze and hiccup in life to be participating "properly".

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

mathewi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:49:04 -0000

I agree, Jake -- Twitter's end game is unclear.

Re: How Twitter is like soap, or Soylent Green

calamityjake — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:21:23 -0000

I pretty much agree with the Soylent Green theory of social networking (although, of course, features and performance play a significant role in attracting the critical mass a social networking service needs to take off)--and by that theory, you've got to give Facebook (or Google, if it wanted to jump in) the big edge in the Twitter-esque category. Facebook certainly has more regular users, and they spend plenty of time on the site, so you'd expect that with a modicum of additional functionality the Facebook status feature would take over and leave Twitter a faded, useless shell (like poor Friendster).

But, as Scott Karp says, these sites aren't necessarily fighting for the same users, anyway. And those users who might use one or the other (like me) are just as likely to figure out how to use both--the TwitterSync Facebook app clones my Twitter messages as Facebook status messages without much trouble.

I think the real question is whether there's enough general interest in Twitter as a standalone product at all. Obviously it has found a niche of passionate users, but I certainly haven't had much luck convincing most of my non-techie friends to start using the site. And, unfortunately for Twitter, if they were to expand their service beyond status messages, I think they'd be doubly-screwed, because at that point they're actually competing with Facebook. And I don't think they win that fight.

Basically, I think Twitter's best bet is to dance with who brung it, figure out some way to monetize the service (see how I casually threw that in there, like it's a minor issue?), and eke out a profitable existence as a minor player in social networking.