Uh, so, now we're so egotistical that we think people we don't know care what we're doing right now, but yet we're too lazy to update our websites? We can't be bothered to craft a good post, so we "microblog"?

This is the essence of net-garbage. It's just more useless crap filling the uncappable void. I've seen Twitter in use- this is what I see posted:

"Eating a sandwich"

"Meeting"

"I h8 KFED!!1!"

And so on. Wow. So great.

As if an AIM away message wasn't enough. Twitter, to me, epitomizes the thing that will be Web 2.0's destruction- the ceaseless barrage of inane information from individuals of no authority, talent, or social grace. The commercialism will inject itself soon, and the freeloaders will die off.

I don't even know what twitter is but the name is enough to make me want to stay away. Can someone define what a "twit" is for me (nuff said) and, JW, well put.

I wouldn't say it is egotistical - since you can restrict your postings only to your friends.

But exactly why this is a killer-app, I'm not sure.

Twitter seems like a stripped down version of Tumblr without the mixed media:
http://www.tumblr.com/

What a decent tumblelog looks like:
http://project.ioni.st/

What's ol' grubby's opinion on Tumblr? Seems more up your alley than Twitter.

Ah, the old "TumbleLog" which is exactly like a weblog, just shorter posts. At some point this just becomes a tautology - what I've been doing on Grubbykid is almost identical to what Tumblr does. For me, trying to create distinction where there is no obvious differentiation is not useful.

The strength of Twitter is the centrality of it all - and the ability to use the API or RSS feed to syndicate your feed.

One funny thing about Twitter are the "fake" profiles. Like the Darth Vader Twitter.

Tumblr's website says "Tumblelogs are like blogs with less fuss."

If you can't deal with the "fuss" of a templated blog, then get the hell off the Internet. Seriously! Pack it up, write your family a note, and kill yourself. Even if your preference is to create shorter posts and provide lots of links, like grubbykid.com tends to, at least here there are options here, and there seems to be some concern on the part of the designer to allow himself the ability to have short posts and long posts alike.

There is a point in the pendulum-swing between hard working, considerate, empathic, productive society and completely apathetic and slothful behaviour. Why do I feel like we're definitely pointed squarely at the latter?

I was talking someone ten years my junior recently about the forseeable death of MySpace, and I think one thing that will keep garbage like that an Twitter going for longer than the should is the fact that fads have stopped coming in waves, but are simply one gigantic, ceaseless wave. Instead of marketing being the driving force behind fads (yo-yo's are awesome! No, wait, Pogo Ball is back!), the "social networking" scam is the driving force. For every person that gets sick of it and leaves their Twitter account in the dust, another one picks it up for two weeks, then gets sick of it, then the cycle continues.

Bollocks to that.

I agree with a lot jw is saying, especially the ceaseless wave of internet fads. However, I can see some good being made from twitter or tumblr or whatever else. By itself, maybe not, but as an aside or companion to someone's main blog perhaps. It gives space for the little thoughts and found minutae that you perhaps want to share without taking residence within your main blog, because of focus or whatever reason. Just a thought. I certainly don't consider myself a serious blogger though by any means, so let this be a sort of layman's opinion. I keep mine for the handful of friends and family who like to know what's going on in my life. And I imagine twitter and tumblr are good for others in that situation, or for kids who blog for the benefit of their friends. A stepping stone maybe?

Interesting thoughts, I broke out the typology argument to a new post.

I too agree that cultural winds don't so much change as rush tornado-like around the world. Perhaps the angst this is causing people is that once-held exclusivity which fads held in the past are rendered nonexistent due to the ubiquitous media and communications soup we live in.

It would seem to me that the exclusive-to-ubiquitous instance is a simplistic definition of a "fad" (one kid shows off his new frisbee, a week later, everyone has a frisbee, a week later, frisbee is banned at recess), but that this simplistic definition is becoming the only definition.

Elitists will always hem and haw when the masses are given power that rivals their own. I hope that I am not an elitist (though I do hate the masses!)- I accept the popularity of low-quality forms such as MySpace, and am certainly not saying that people shouldn't be welcome to participate in the social Web.

My issue is that "participation" more than anything is the part that's being scrubbed out. You can participate in someone's blog without ever visiting it- via RSS feeds and such. That slices off a layer of engagement there. Add to this a twitter-like approach, where not only does the viewer have no reason to have genuine interest in the content, but the creator doesn't either. Like sounding off into the wind, the content is really meant to neither be read or cared for by the nature of its quality and lack of involvement.

I suppose that looking at Twitter as if it were an IM system or a micro-blog is really the worst way to do it, because classified under those terms, it's a disgrace. It needs to redefine at an elemental level, or be subjected to the laws of Fad-dom, and die its flaming, glorious death.