P.S. is would be great if comments allowed some kind of wiki link syntax like [http://blah friendly name] :)
Traditionally people telecocoon with their two or three closest friends. However, Twitter lowers the telecocooning barrier so you can telecocoon with many more friends for the same effort. People tend to just send messages like "ahh homework sucks" or "heh stuck at the library." You aren't really communicating anything intelligent, but you are building a feeling of group solidarity by letting people around you know what's up. It also helps people to find where their friends are if they want to meet up.
I can see how it can show how you care or are thinking of them but if telecocooning lowers the barrier doesn't that trivialize a message? It's like giving a myspace bulletin to your whole friends list but telling them something less important than what is usually sent around.
I do like that you can use it to meet up with friends. That's a cool feature.
I think lowering the barriers does trivialize the message in some ways. For example, it would build less of a bond between any two individuals. However, I think it builds a tighter bond between the individual and their group of friends as a whole.
if you accept that what we have available yesterday is enough for everyone today then you accept that there is no space for new ideas.
but the reason there are ideas is because we are never satisfied.
though, i had also the same reaction when i first heared about netvibes broad use and I wondered why contrary to its simplicity. But its one of these times that simplicity of creating something not conceived by lots of people, can grasp significant usage due to the audience ready to adopt that peculiar experience, that later only becomes familiar and how i could live without it or just a trend that will pass...
I compare it to those overly hyped bands that you only hear about either at SXSW or around awards shows. They never get a good record deal and fade away very quickly.