twitter.com: they say it's the new myspace

[mejon]

Not really gear related, and so little time for these things, but, there's a lot of networking going on. Some people say it's going be huge. Grab your usernames while you can: Twitter.com

bye!

Jon

[elambo]

Seems completely unnecessary.

Who exactly is predicting that it will be the next MySpace? I see you're a member already - what's the attraction?

[mejon]

Originally Posted by elambo

Seems completely unnecessary.

Who exactly is predicting that it will be the next MySpace? I see you're a member already - what's the attraction?

My guess is that people are being attracted to it because it is something new to belong to. Plus, you can use a variety of media to use it with. Bands, artists, and industry professionals are signing up, blogging, and of course, reading about everyone else.

It's still in an embryonic stage...

[HEADROOM]

Yes we need more information about what EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD IS DOING RIGHT NOW!!!!

I think I ll go for a pee next, I m very proud to be able to share this valuable information with the global community.......




nickoosterhuis.com

[ignatius]

there's about 4-5 "next myspaces" out there now.

[GregP]

Twitter's got some serious buzz, though. I might sign up as part of some research for work, but left to my own devices I wouldn't bother. Never bothered with MySpace, never bothered with FaceBook.

Greg

[vixapphire]

someone sent me an invite to join yesterday. i went to his page and it was almost parodically like the comment above: one after another statements of the "the *x* show just went to commercials, so i'm going to take a piss" variety.

i don't think i've ever seen anything as useless, personally. not to mention, uninteresting.

[theblue1]

The next MySpace...

... would that be a good thing?




Mind you, I'm on my way there right now. I've been on MySpace since early 2004 and was on Friendster before that. I was on Compuserve in '87... I was a beta tester for AOL (under the old Geoworks OS) on the PC while it was still officially Mac Only... so... you know. I must explore the evil that men do with thinking machines...



I'm back...

Well, that's just stupid, innit?


I mean, I appreciate the attitude of deciding to make one of the ugliest, most stunted interfaces yet to grace the web -- but which they then ruin by having some bloated, slow loading background image that struggled over my 3 Mbps fat pipe, straggling onto the screen just as I let my eyes make one last sweep of the clumsy layout and ugly colors to make sure the only thing I was missing was genuine prattle and piffle.

It's hard to believe they could find enough members to fill up a single page... then again... it really does appear to be mostly the idle thoughts of the walking soul-dead... all I can wonder is how such stupid people learned to type, let alone read and write...

[ignatius]

Originally Posted by theblue1

I must go where the stupid bouncing ball uh... bounces.

then you must go to virb

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by ignatius

then you must go to virb

Thanks for the tip... sometimes there are so many bright shiny objects I just can't decide where my hummingbird like attention should flicker to next...

These people won't be around long. Their front page doesn't have enough CRAP on it. If you wanna make it on the WWW, baby, you gotta have CRAP on your front page or no one will take you seriously.

I mean... I actually don't hate the look of it and I would say to you that's an almost certain kiss of death.

It looks so 2005. And I mean that in a nice way... 2005 would have been a wonderful year, I think, for most of us and the world, if reality hadn't spun sideways in the previous few years and certain parties plunged the US into war but that's obviously not something we want to get into here.


Anyhow... maybe there IS some potential for virb, since the whole "tagging" thing seems as perplexingling boring as the whole "friend trading" bullshit at M/S... and when I'm sufficiently perplexed by some stupid faddish undercurrent of contemporary life, you know it's gonna be big... for fifteen seconds.


With regards to MySpace, I think I'm coming to realize what it is... it's the old Mp3.com -- only without the music angle. (At least at first.) But it's very much like Mp3.com from a consumer perspective. People who spent any time in BBs at Mp3.com became aware that there was a big pent up desire for online communities of interest... and yet many of the people are simply not interesting at all... funny how that works.


At least here, we can talk about gear.


_______________

My favorite virb page so far: VIRB° is comedy.

I'm taking odds against it, actually...

[PMoshay]

ill take odds on that one tanking........

up to the minute info on strangers around the world?
Where's the focus of people anymore............is random information interesting? or do people just need friends that desperately? and are they really friends?

[mejon]

Originally Posted by theblue1

At least here, we can talk about gear.

Amen.

[Savernake]

Just found this page looking for gearslut twitter feeds.

Seems like a good way to get a simple little blog to keep in touch with friends or update people about your band in a mobile way.

Funny that someone said this:

These people won't be around long. Their front page doesn't have enough CRAP on it. If you wanna make it on the WWW, baby, you gotta have CRAP on your front page or no one will take you seriously.

That's probably why I like twitter above anything else (always hated myspace, facebook was increasingly rubbish after it got other apps and was covered in 'crap'). Twitter isn't covered in crap, and it keeps you updated from app developers in text message size rather than overwhelming RSS feed size, and bloggers seem to share interesting little links thanks to tinyurl.com or is.gd URL Shortener - The Shortest URLs Around .

I'm at Twitter / TomDavenport and would like to follow your feed since I don't have any audio types yet.

[Savernake]

Also, Stephen Fry actually said this today:

w00t! Grillaz like totally PWN the jungle, innit x

I am not joking, this man wrote those precise words today. An actual human genius chose to write like that.

[Savernake]

Had to bump this again - the OP was right, this did hit the mainstream.

Screw TV, phones, email, forums... screw all other media! - all I want is twitter!

[centurymantra]

Originally Posted by theblue1

The next MySpace...

... would that be a good thing?







I mean, I appreciate the attitude of deciding to make one of the ugliest, most stunted interfaces yet to grace the web -- but which they then ruin by having some bloated, slow loading background image that struggled over my 3 Mbps fat pipe, straggling onto the screen just as I let my eyes make one last sweep of the clumsy layout and ugly colors to make sure the only thing I was missing was genuine prattle and piffle.

It's hard to believe they could find enough members to fill up a single page... then again... it really does appear to be mostly the idle thoughts of the walking soul-dead... all I can wonder is how such stupid people learned to type, let alone read and write...

I just happened to look at this revived thread and gotta say I that the cynic in me is LOL (for real) at this totally brutal but totally hysterical summary.

[BudgetMC]

Ahhh... MP3.com. It was a beautiful time! I actually made a fair bit of money off of the old "pay for play" scheme back when they were devouring internet bubble capital.

Originally Posted by theblue1

With regards to MySpace, I think I'm coming to realize what it is... it's the old Mp3.com -- only without the music angle. (At least at first.) But it's very much like Mp3.com from a consumer perspective. .

[BarbieDoll]

You guys just seriously don't get it. You want to know why twitter is exploding? Yet at the same time it is full of these "going to take a leak now" messages?

Let me explain this to you: in this age of being connected online and glued to the pc like it's your digital nipple we have lost touch with people and real live interaction. Twitter give you the impression of connectivity and closeness to people because you feel their online presence even though you might not really interact with them.

Sad but true. Now back to updating my facebook status.

[noiseflaw]

Jeez another pointless social network, me me me me site.

Now the sites are becoming completely inane.

A - "Hey what ya doin?"

B - "takin a dump"

A - I'm havin a coffee and reading the paper"

B - "Uh oh how can you? - your twittering me!"

A - ...."Oh yeah, sorry - I'm sad and bored so I'm twittering away to any other saddo
who will entertain my useless inconsequential ramblings - hey! how can you be
twittering me and taking a dump?"

B - "'Cos I'm sad too, I take my mobile net connectivity devices with me everywhere to
keep me er...connected. I hate feeling lonely and unheard...



Twitter this...

F*ck off!

[Jules]

There is now a link now at the bottom left of the page to put pages that you like or want to share.

Twit this!

[dougb415]

I too had no idea why I should sign up for MySpace, etc. but I now have accounts on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. So far it's been fun thumbsup

[Jorg]

i got a twitter and even tho Ive been trying hard, I still havent seen the point in it. dfegad

[Dean Roddey]

I dunno. Where's that emoticon for rolling your eyes while simulating jerking off? I need that one. Like I want to maximize the information available on the web to be used against me in the future.

If you look at MySpace, it's mostly just a massively self promotional circle jerks basically, where every other post includes a huge ad for the poster, who posted a reply purely to get his ad on as many other people's pages as possible. And of course various scams to get hit counts up and so forth.

It's like CB radio, but one were everyone can talk at the same time and not listen to anyone else. It does have legitimate uses, don't get me wrong, but the problem is that too many people will inevitably attempt to take advantage of it and turn it into a sesspool.

I don't know if Twitter is amenable to those same abuses or not. But, if it is in any way possible, then people will do it.

[Savernake]

Originally Posted by noiseflaw

Jeez another pointless social network, me me me me site.

Now the sites are becoming completely inane.

A - "Hey what ya doin?"

B - "takin a dump"

A - I'm havin a coffee and reading the paper"

B - "Uh oh how can you? - your twittering me!"

A - ...."Oh yeah, sorry - I'm sad and bored so I'm twittering away to any other saddo
who will entertain my useless inconsequential ramblings - hey! how can you be
twittering me and taking a dump?"

B - "'Cos I'm sad too, I take my mobile net connectivity devices with me everywhere to
keep me er...connected. I hate feeling lonely and unheard...



Twitter this...

F*ck off!

Thankfully, the twitter system is such that you don't follow idiots like that.

In fact, you're the only person to write an entire stream of lame shit like that (to yourself) online; congratulations.

Thanks to following people who share specifically similar interests, I get all the interesting links and humour I need in the evening. I also get to ask a question relating to almost anything I need help with, and thanks to the 'people powered search engine' it has become, several people will come to help. You're welcome to trawl through google yourself, I'd rather 'send a text message' and get the answer straight back to me.

Did you know the characters of Peep Show are on twitter? (excellent brittish comedy) Twitter / peep_show

[Savernake]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

It's like CB radio, but one were everyone can talk at the same time and not listen to anyone else.

It seems like that at first. It's actually more like listening/talking at 50/1.

Also, it seems people enjoy and use twitter best on some kind of smartphone.

There's also an excellent application called TweetDeck at TweetDeck which many think is the best desktop twitter application.

Fact: Twitter beats national news to breaking stories by approximately 15 minutes (that's true). Often, as in the case of the recent plane crashes, witnesses report in real time on events. Try that on the shockingly shite myspace.

[Savernake]

Oh yes - see if any of these artists don't take your fancy

Artists, Bands and Musicians on Twitter - Google Docs

[Jorg]

So what is the actual purpose of twitter??
I've been browsing around for a good half an hour and all it seemed to me is that they based it around the "current status" that you have on facebook.
If thats what it is then whats the fu**ing point?
I tried to find a few people on there but seems I'm the only sad mofo in my circle of friends who actually has an account.

If theres more to twitter then please explain and please explain how to get to it cause I cant see it.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Savernake

Oh yes - see if any of these artists don't take your fancy

Artists, Bands and Musicians on Twitter - Google Docs

I dropped in on a few artists... I have to say that it's kind of depressing. Some of these people who actually appear to do their own twitting (plenty of signs that the accounts of many are assigned to PA's -- or more likely interns) seem to be every bit as vapid as their fans.

I dropped in one old fave's Twitter page only to find out that the most interesting thing he has to talk about are his wife's Wii scores in some moronic game, and his upcoming shows, of course. Like I said, kind of depressing.


Now, don't get me wrong, I can well see the value of the mobile phone component of this for keeping communication between various kinds of work teams in the field. I've heard of Twitter being used for communications updates between firefighting teams in Cali during the wild fires. But how'd you like to have your communications go down right when you need it in one of Twitter's frequent service brown-outs?

I'm perfectly willing to use Twitter for any purpose that makes sense. Those uses are there for others. Perhaps I'll find myself seeking it out one of these days.


But when it started picking up word of mouth again around the time of the election, when a number of media types got onto it (always late, they are), I visited some of their pages. These were people who were talking about how great it was, how it was going to revolutionize communication as we know it. So what were they talking about when they weren't hyping a book signing or Larry King appearance? Going to Starbucks. Taking the Russian Wolfhound to the vet... you know, world shaking stuff.

If I wanted to be bored... I'd read my own blog.

[avanturb]

Twitter is a very powerful little social network. It seems kind of trivial. As someone has said like a glorified status message, but in this simple functionality it is able to do things that other social networks simply haven't. The biggest problem right now with Twitter is that as its popularity has grown the signal to noise ratio has gone askew.

What that means for new users is that its very easy to be duped into believing its just a bunch of spam mixed in with japanese high school style text messages. But if you connect with those of your interests and really get a strong network a lot of things happen. One of my favorite things is a search for "In The Studio" as a motivator. You'd be amazed to realize who is actually in the studio right now. Even more when you have a strong network by example if the GS community was actively involved, a simple question that you might other wise post on the forum would garner the quick response you'd really like.

Since I've started using it I've linked with a number of quality professional contacts and even landed some work through it. The reason it works is that more than profiles or websites, its about conversations. Open conversations, which can be had with people which can develop real relationships.

There are people that abuse it so to speak but that can be said about most social networks. But when used right it can be more powerful than any of its predecessors.

[Jorg]

Originally Posted by avanturb

Twitter is a very powerful little social network. It seems kind of trivial. As someone has said like a glorified status message, but in this simple functionality it is able to do things that other social networks simply haven't. The biggest problem right now with Twitter is that as its popularity has grown the signal to noise ratio has gone askew.

What that means for new users is that its very easy to be duped into believing its just a bunch of spam mixed in with japanese high school style text messages. But if you connect with those of your interests and really get a strong network a lot of things happen. One of my favorite things is a search for "In The Studio" as a motivator. You'd be amazed to realize who is actually in the studio right now. Even more when you have a strong network by example if the GS community was actively involved, a simple question that you might other wise post on the forum would garner the quick response you'd really like.

Since I've started using it I've linked with a number of quality professional contacts and even landed some work through it. The reason it works is that more than profiles or websites, its about conversations. Open conversations, which can be had with people which can develop real relationships.

There are people that abuse it so to speak but that can be said about most social networks. But when used right it can be more powerful than any of its predecessors.

So basically the functionality of it is based around the status bar but rather then just typing: "I'm cutting my toe nails" people use it ask questions like "where to get my Mic fixed"??
And if you have a good network (which must be based on people following you as much as you following them) you might get quick and quality responses?? Is that what you meant? If so, I can kinda see the use of it.