Is Twitter a Waste of Time?
Followers so easily gained are just as easily lost...
What does the “Pet Rock” have in common with Twitter? The answer is, they are both fads which will soon fall-off into the oblivion of useless products.
Background on my Twitter Test
I began a Twitter test on December 10th to confirm or deny what my gut was telling me. During my test period of about a month, I accumulated around 360 “followers” while “following” a little over a thousand people.
http://blog.buzvia.com/twitter-test
What is Twitter?
Twitter is generally a social networking system like Facebook or Friendster but without any of the features that would make it remotely useful. In fact, if you replaced “followers” with the word “friends”, I would find it hard to tell the two apart other than being crippled by only typing messages up to 140 characters long.
The Social Mind Game
What Twitter has in common with social networks in general is how many friends or followers you have. I think without this little bean counter, very few people would find joy out of either system. Why? Because we are brought-up in a society where the number of “things”, be that friends, money or material objects are seen as a measure of social status. For instance, if I had 5 cars instead of just a motorcycle, people would see me in a very different light. The mind game with social networks is that it’s a “free” (if you don’t value your time) way of accumulating “something” more than somebody else. If I have 400 friends and you have only 20, somehow, it would give me more status, which, to be honest, is crazy logic but true. What I find ultimately sad about these systems is that they not only belittle the true value of a “friend” or “follower” but I suspect far too many people get an artifical boost in self-esteem using these hollow expressions of self-worth.
Gaming Twitter
Let’s get back to Twitter, this system makes MSN one look feature rich! The barriers to entry are GONE because there is nothing to install and it works on all browsers online no matter your system configurations. So at the end of the day, you have an application that is itching to be gamed, and that, after a month, seems to be the “game” with Twitter. How do you get to a thousand followers (ei: indifferent strangers)? Easy, add a bunch of people and delete them a few days later… repeat. I did this 3 times, each time, I tripled my “following” in order to double my “followers”. Now, what is the value to this? NONE! At the end of the day, you have nothing more than a bunch of indifferent people following more indifferent people all trying to get more authority off one another, whose value is just as worthless. This is exactly the same thing as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and the list goes on but at least those systems do provide some nominal value in finding actual, real, lost friends.
Pet Rock VS Twitter
If I had to choose between a Pet Rock or Twitter, I would opt for the Pet Rock because at least you can throw it at somebody if you are attacked… with Twitter, you are stuck saying “help me” with a link to your webcam of yourself being attacked.
Just to prove my point, here is a very short transcript of what has happened in my Twitter account while I wrote this blog entry… I have nothing personal against these people but I don’t see any value in this… do you?
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thuyphan need to start blogging again
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lukefrombuzzle Personal Brand Management at buzzle http://tinyurl.com/932p9w
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lukefrombuzzle Launching something new in 2009 – http://tinyurl.com/932p9w
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micheleneylon http://www.miniclip.com/gam… silly but addictive
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thomascook Twitter phishing scam spreading – http://zi.ma/843
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lukefrombuzzle Just decided to commit to the WP Remix theme…now there are issues with their server – damn, so excited!
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DanaFosburgh I think Crosby had Mclean’s jersey over his head before the puck even hit the ice.
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remarkablogger IM IN UR DM PHISHIN UR PASSWURDZ
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WineDiverGirl is eating olives, pistachios, n smoked gouda with a rockin’ 2006 Cab Franc…oh mamma!
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fuzzydave might head out soon for a pint – wanna join?
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cjow Has anyone heard of Zango? It keeps popping up when I want to watch streaming episodes online. Hesitant abt using it. Safe or no?
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lookielookies Contributors, Join Renate’s Birthday Giveaway http://aweber.com/b/1vzVJ
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remarkablogger That twitter phishing thing is actually a rogue AI that will set the apocalypse in motion. Sorry, my bad.
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dreamreaper RT @troyapeterson: http://tinyurl.com/8lonx4 Yes, FB will kill Twitter. Are you kidding? LOL.
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dreamreaper RT @AndroGeek: Android installed and running on an Eee PC in a matter of hours http://tinyurl.com/a94lme While Windows may be more popul
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remarkablogger On a similar note, @rjleaman is the queen of non-profit blogging!
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bnpositive Microsoft Weblog ::: My 3-yr Anniversary at Microsoft Weblog: It was three years ago today .. http://tinyurl.com/8uwa5r
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newmoneyblog Updated my blog with Top Plugin Wordpress http://tinyurl.com/94em7o
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Geek_News Readers: looking for suggestions for questions to ask Jamie Sorcher “the Gizmo Girl” at CES in Vegas.
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Talkofthatown feels good to take action instead of relaxing
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Do you HATE Twitter?
Not at all, at the end of the day, Twitter is just another piece of software whose emotions for or against shouldn’t rise anywhere above or below indifference. My gut was telling me it was a waste of time, I did a month test to see if it was or wasn’t and at the end of the day, it didn’t suit me, my needs nor fill a gap in my life so I ceased using it as of today. Twitter does nothing for me personally, isn’t a source of self-esteem and I don’t care to know the intimate details of how other people live their lives as I got my own to live.
People HATE an outsider
I have visited a few blogs which say only wonderful things about how Twitter has changed their life (???), how it has lead them to new opportunities and find new friends. I would post my objection to this type of talk and the result? I was called a loser and a failure etc… what I find interesting is that this is the same kinda talk that would come out of a school yard… but this was from adults! I find it fascinating how little people actually grow-up mentally when they reach adulthood. Having a difference of opinion doesn’t make somebody less valuable, actually, it’s an asset! But some people just can’t understand why somebody isn’t thinking the same as them and there is no point in trying to reason with them either.
The Bottom Line
Follow your gut… it will have a better track record than crowd mentality.
