Katherine Guenther 2012: Twitter

Twitter is a time consuming, life-altering website designed to distract people from the real world. However, it has many other applications that have helped to change the way we communicate as a society.

Firstly, twitter can be used as a news source. While trusting twitter with facts is like trusting your thesis paper to Wikipedia twitter has changed the speed at which information is circulated. According to CNN writer Doug Gross, “With Twitter, it's fast on steroids.” Gross describes twitters popularity as, “In the Twitter echo chamber, all it takes is a few users with big follower counts to share something. With one click, those followers share it with their own followers. And the wildfire is set ablaze.” This describes essentially how news travels on twitter. The Kony 2012 film is a great example of this. By using celebrity twitters and their mass followings the video spread so quickly it gave new leverage to the term “viral video.”

Secondly, twitter can be used as a marketing tool. Your favorite website or TV show is a lot more interesting when it has daily updates. These updates make the product feel more like a friend than a product and because of the lighting fast speed of twitter this feeling can be re-tweeted by thousands of users within days. However, the tweet can just as quickly fall under the radar and disappear into the unknown regions of the internet where my live journal hides in obscurity – but the possibility is the regardless.

Twitter has a lot of uses from a journalistic perspective. Although according to CNN the top 100 twitter sites are still celebrities and “old media”, “nestled not terribly far below are hundreds of bloggers, podcasters and online journalists who have found a bigger audience on Twitter than they probably would have without it.” On twitter a strangers tweets have just as much standing as CNN and MSNBC. This leads to the fast travel of news that isn't always trustworthy. This is shown in China's reaction to what the government calls “rumors”. According to Tania Branigan writer for The Guardian, “China has 300 million registered microblog users and while services are censored – blocking prevents sensitive terms from being posted, and other material is often deleted – authorities are increasingly concerned at the speed at which information can spread.”

The other criticism of Twitter from a journalistic perspective is that is dumbs down ideas. According to Technology Bloggers writer Marc, “Tweets are cute, but they lack the intellectual and creative substance of a more sustained thought. 140 characters or even a single paragraph cannot provide enough context to tell the whole story.” Thus while tweets spread information and opinions quickly they do not spread ideas, concepts and solutions quickly due to the word limit.

Despite it's flaws twitter is great at promotion. Twitter can break down the shell surrounding celebrities and politicians. While emails are formal and can be deleted and ignored tweets are public. Everyone can see what a celebrity or politician chooses to respond to and how. This makes it harder for a celebrity or politician to hide behind a publicist but makes the internet and the people all the more interesting and real.

Twitter can also help an organization prosper and advertise. Because twitter is free to use non-profits organizations use it frequently. The American non-profit, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals uses twitter to encourage donations, share news about causes and promote protests. These tweets are completely public and thus all twitter users have a chance at this exposure.

Twitter can also help advertize other websites. Using a Tiny Url allows users to tweet links to websites or pictures for when 140 characters just aren't enough. All a tweet needs is an interesting tag-line to draw users in to a longer narrative.

Twitter also encourages conversation and discussion. However, short this conversation is. The recent controversy that spilled over twitter about the casting of an African-American character in the movie the Hunger Games helps to highlight public opinion and has lead to a discussion of race that might not have otherwise been noticed.

The organizations I chose to follow reflected my interests and causes. I chose to follow PETA and the SPCA because they constantly update and offer news about protests and controversies. I would love to help spread this information by re-tweeting it and adding comments. Being a follower of these organizations makes me feel like an activist even if all I'm doing is clicking an icon.

I chose to follow Game Informer because having video games attached to a magazine makes it feel more like a reputable hobby. I found most of their tweets were just links to the website but I still found following them interesting and I enjoyed tweeting about what I thought about the article.

I chose to follow Metallica because they have a lot going on right now. They are on an international tour and I enjoyed getting to see their pictures from the tour. I also enjoyed that they advertised for so many contests.

Finally, I chose to follow the WWE because they are insanely entertaining. They literally blow up twitter with hundreds of tweets a day. While a user may have to search to find a decent one they are usually bursting with hilarious tweets from muscular men with serious ego problems. There is “internet tough guy syndrome” everywhere. In all seriousness the WWE also has a non-profit program through the creative coalition to stop bullying. Sure its probably just a way to market the WWE to weak depressed children but its still adorable that they try.

My experience with twitter has been a lot different than blogger and social media. The most important detail being I found it really ineffective. Tweeting to me felt like commenting on a post. It seemed like everything I did was shoved down the tweet list to the bottom. I didn't feel like I had many original ideas. Instead I felt like I was just updating the information someone else sent me. I suppose my experience would have been a little different had my twitter been for personal use and my tweets been completely my opinion. However, even then I feel like my tweets would still be unnoticed.