It’s All Communication, People! #blogher09
During the closing keynote, a conversation started about how people could be “addicted” to twitter. My first thought was, if your friends think you’re addicted, you need new friends.
But in all seriousness, to me, Twitter, email, Facebook & IM are much more useful communication tools than the phone. It is pretty expected that people will be available by phone at all times. I don’t see a difference – especially when you consider that my phone doesn’t always work (thanks to AT&T). I can almost always check my email or Twitter.
I do not understand – AT ALL – people saying “I’m not going to check my email for a week.” I don’t get how that is any different than someone saying “I’m not going to answer my phone for a week,” which you know nobody ever will do. It’s simply a different form of communication.
It is an accepted fact that people are using email less because they’re moving to Facebook or IM. I would bet that people are using their phone less as well – I know in my case, if the phone rings, something is wrong. Isn’t saying “I’m going to avoid email” just shutting yourself out from the rest of the world?
It is not uncommon for me to have a conversation that starts on IM or Twitter, continues on SMS, moves to Facebook, then ends up in person. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one either. I have some friends I talk to on Twitter (privately), some on Facebook, some on MySpace, some on email. Nobody calls me, which is fine with me, all of my “real-life” friends have picked whichever format they’re most comfortable with and talk to me there.
Whatever method we use for communication, it’s clear that there are positives and negatives. I just wish that people would look at them for what they are….email is a phone call in text form, IM is a twitter sent to your screen….don’t shut it out because of what it is.
It’s the message, not the medium!
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By Jennifer, July 25, 2009 @ 4:42 pm
I couldn’t agree more. And the people who do not use facebook, Twitter, email and such like we do, simply do not understand this. I actually had an old friend of mine (without a computer) send me a snotty text saying that the only way she guess she can talk to me is if she is online. Well – that’s not entirely true, but yes, it is how people are doing things more and more.
By Steve Greenberg, July 26, 2009 @ 12:40 am
Same here. I almost never talk to anyone by phone anymore, it’s all SMS and Twitter. My only comment is that email hasn’t stopped, it’s just that “social” messages have moved. A private Facebook message *is* email. It has a “to”, a “from”, and a message body. It’s store-and-forward. It’s email. It’s just a closed email system. MySpace only sends to MySpace users, Facebook only lets you send to Facebook users. Stops spam, so it’s not all bad, but it also means that you have to check multiple places.
I believe, that Twitter and SMS are basically the same thing, and will merge. The 140 character limit is the killer feature. Everything can be created and consumed on mobiles. “Real time everything” is mostly Valley hype. There are some shiny, shiny new real time things that you can do, and they’re very cool, but they’re not why Twitter is important.