Twitter is a website that has changed social interaction between humans because information about someone's life is easily assessable. It it a powerful tool that allows someone to check in on life of another person. Wonder what a President Obama or Shaq is doing all one has to do is get on Twitter to instantly know. Twitter is still relatively new so there are certain parts of the website that could use improvement. One key thing is that Twitter doesn't really have a map to locate users that someone is searching for. Like say if someone was interested in following members of the New York Yankees there is no way to find them. However there there are third party sites that have lists that sort users by specific themes. It would be in Twitter's to publish this information so users would have an easier time navigating the site.
Twitter has another problem which is users are unable to directly post pictures or videos directly to their Tweets. There are ways around this put it would make the site a lot more interesting if users could post pictures or videos directly instead of having to click through to a new page. A video would let followers see what people are doing instead of just reading their Tweet. It would enhance the website greatly.
An interesting aspect of Twitter is that it allows users to follow politicians who represent them. No longer can someone say that their representatives who gets nothing done. Politicians can know tell their constituents exactly what they are doing for them. They can Tweet something like “Finally passed the resolution to ban trans fat in restaurants.” Twitter makes politics more transparent which is a great thing. Politicians should be the public eye and Twitter allows them to show the people who they represent what they are doing for them.
Twitter is certainly changing the culture. People can fulfill their desires to see what others are doing around them. However it might lead to information overload. Do people really care that their neighbor is buying sweaters in Macy's. It allows followers to know exactly how the people they follow are living their lives. Its like Big Brother to a degree never seen before. Tweeting is still a choice but as it becomes more and more popular people will have to adopt it to fit in. Twitter is slowly eroding people's privacy.
Twitter is also an effective business tool. Stores can get word out about sales or new merchandise without having to pay for advertising. Customers can be followers of a company and that company can contact them. It shows businesses who their faithful customer are without businesses having to track them down. Twitter helps companies advertise to customers and is a lot more cost effective than traditional methods.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/technology/personaltech/11basics.html?ref=technology
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This blog caught my interest because I have a twitter account and was interested in what technologies are going to improve the twitter website. I enjoy following celebrities and a few of my friends, most of the time I enjoy seeing these new tweets. I also get a notification on my phone when someone I am following posts a new tweet. Most celebrities have interesting tweets but when they tweet too much it can get annoying, for example the Kardashian sisters tweet all day and they kept filling up my news feed. I decided to stop following the Kardashian sisters. It is an interesting way for celebrities to market and advertise themselves as well as the Food Network and Style Watch. The Kardashians tweet about upcoming episodes of their reality show, Food Network tweets about new recipes and Style Watch tweets about what clothes celebrities are wearing and where to find clothes at a discount.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to uploading pictures, It is very easy for me to upload my pictures on to my Twitter. I don’t publish any albums but I can upload pictures taken from my phone. When I want to follow someone new, it is not very hard for me to find them, to know the official account of celebrities or politicians they have a blue check next to them saying their twitter is a verified account. If I cannot find someone I am looking for I go to their website and somewhere on their homepage it says “follow me on twitter”. I find it very interesting to see what people are tweeting, the most recent tweets that I have seen are about the earthquake in chili, and asking people for their support and service.
I liked this blog a lot as in the 21st century everybody is always in a rush and no longer has time to sit down or talk. A tool like twitter enables us to constantly update those that are "following" us to know what we are up to. Although you argue certain 'faults' of twitter is the incapability to post pictures or text that is more than 160 characters or be able to directly search groups I feel that this separates Twitter from other social networking sites like myspace and facebook. It is amazing how fast technology is taking off and how at the tip of our fingertips we have live updates to what our loved ones are doing. It will be interesting to see if Twitter can maintain its grasp on our culture or if it will die off within a couple of years and something better comes along to replace it.
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