This Is Probably An Interesting Blog (But In The Offhand Chance That It's Not…)

I was discussing the relevance and perceivably fleeting nature of Twitter with a coworker yesterday. It’s interesting for me to watch the growth and prevalence of this strange method of social networking, especially because I used to be so skeptical of it. Nowadays, I have my Twitter linked to my Facebook updates and I’m a regular evangelical about the importance of Twitter both from a cultural standpoint and a professional standpoint.

I’m surrounded by people in the professional world who absolutely love Twitter — but why? From a corporate standpoint, it may just be the newest way to reach people. Social networking is a constantly evolving machine — there was Myspace, then Facebook, and now Twitter. But I would contend what others have already brought forth; that Twitter is more than a cultural fad and its changing how we communicate. Need an example? Twitter makes you a better writer by making you a more concise writer, forcing you to use the least amount of characters to communicate the most effective idea. 

From a Public Relations or Marketing perspective, this is probably one of the most important developments in years. These are essentially free press releases in only 140 characters. This is viral marketing on a new level. And the benefits? Minimal exertion yields maximum saturation.

But, however brilliant Twitter may be as a tool of business or advertising, the failure of Twitter in capturing the world’s imagination may be more related to the seemingly needless updates we receive from our friends and celebrity crushes in real-time. Do we really care about what you’re having for breakfast or that you’re really, really tired from work? Time seems to think we should:

And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this “ambient awareness”: by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don’t think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.

There’s a sense that we, in our own limited way, are becoming closer to one another through these little interactions and updates. Friend to friend, company to consumer, consumer to corporation; the possibilities of what we could do, create, challenge, and advocate through our collective knowledge of one another is something people should start to recognize. The millions of individuals who use Twitter do. The many companies and non-profits that have joined the ranks get it too.