Twitter is going to die
ideasonideas.com
ideasonideas.com
Twitter is like high school because the real world is like high school. Web 2.0 is DEFINITELY like high school. Even if we wish it weren't so.
I'm interested to hear your argument on this, mostly because I've found the real world to be nothing like high school. When it comes to "Web 2.0" startups right now, sure, today's "hotness" might be nothing tomorrow, but the companies that rely on sheer high school-like popularity will fail sooner or later, just like those types of people eventually failed following high school.
In cases of direct correlation, I at least see it working both ways. Yes, there will be edge cases; certain people seem to be able to make a living online without actually providing anything of real worth, but this is hardly confined to the Web; tabloids have been doing it for decades.
Spend a few minutes looking at quantcast/compete/alexa's top 1000 and it's clear that the web is high school. From my high horse, it's filled with non-enjoyable, valueless, spammy, low-brow cruft. But my high horse doesn't mean a damn -- the only thing that matters is $$$ =)
Author needs to open their minds just a little more and they'll realize.
"Practically all social networking sites/things is high-school."
Is he responsible for ensuring Twitter has a financial future? No. Are you? No.
He's more interested in the social interaction aspect of the site, if he wanted to talk about revenue I'm sure he would have.
Twitter's issues surrounding its revenue model are a discussion that I didn't want to touch at this time. (It's a long enough post as is.)
Noo.... what matters on Twitter is that the prom-queen is friends with you.
I don't follow "influencial" people for the sake of it, I have my doubts that really helps. On the other hand, I've met some really cool people and also clients through it, which helped a lot, especially as I moved to Vienna knowing virtually nobody.
I have however found that I do need to keep my follow list in check, or the stream of information is overwhelming.
I'd love some client-side filtering & prioritization of my twitter data. While it doesn't have the same archival needs of email, I definitely care more about my infrequently-twitting friends than the dozens of them coming off the more famous tweeters.
As for high school, that's what you get when any social system starts to stagnate.
Perhaps the title should have read: We're going to have to change how we use Twitter. Then of course, that seems a little dull, doesn't it? :-)
What, you mean like it did with email and the telephone? ;)
I think Twitter will have a lot of staying power. The magic of Twitter is that it remains very simple relative to, say, Facebook. There is a very bare-bones set of social-networking relationships: Basically, you can follow, and you can be followed. And following doesn't necessarily carry the social subtext of, say, your Facebook friend list, perhaps because it comes with far fewer consequences, ramifications, and options.
I find it interesting that my (now nearly middle-aged) generation has finally discovered Facebook en masse... and that the number one use case seems to be "keeping in touch with your classmates from high school and college". Facebook was originally designed for students, and that design permeates its DNA to the point that even people who've been out of school for twenty years revert back to Student Mode when they use it: It becomes an ongoing class reunion. But I don't think Twitter will work out quite the same. I think Twitter is more like the phone: In the hands of teens, it's a gossip tool. In the hands of corporate consultants, it's a business tool. In the hands of moms, it's a parenting tool. It's sufficiently abstract that people can find their own uses for it.
I mean, take me. I just don't understand what this fuss is about, anymore than a corporate Blackberry user understands the culture of middle-school text messaging. I don't use Twitter as a high-schoolish gossiping tool and I never have. I don't follow that many people, and I don't see a high volume of tweets. I don't tweet much myself, and I have very few followers. I don't talk to personal friends on Twitter. (Most of them are not there yet; As I said, a lot of them are only just starting to digest Facebook. They'll need another two or three years to discover Twitter.) I still don't understand what these #hashtags really do for you or where you go to see them. I'm the most boring, out-of-touch Twitter user in the world. But I still love it. So I don't think Twitter is going anywhere soon. Fads will come and fads will go, but the desire to communicate goes on.