The Daily Show on Twitter

4 thoughts on “The Daily Show on Twitter”

1. I think it’s funny that Twitter is hitting the news as an “emerging technology”. My first post to Twitter was two years ago (something about planning a wedding that was more than a year off) and I wasn’t an early adopter.

   But when “new” communication technologies find the public eye, it’s typical to see people claiming it will destroy or damage communication as we know it, lead to illiteracy, narcissism or whatever social ill might be haunting society at any given time. They said the same thing about blogging not so very long ago, which I’m pretty sure you’ll remember posting about at the time.

   In my opinion, there is significant benefit in the textual constraints created by Twitter. Writing with such limitations forces us to be as precise as possible (or, granted, you can learn “2 rite lk ths”, which is something I don’t do, and something not done by people I’d ever follow). Twitter isn’t haiku, buit it is a written genre in its own right, and an effective illustration of the rules of written communication.

   One of the biggest misunderstandings of Twitter is the argument that the practice of writing in 140-character chunks suggests that we are thinking in the same bite-sized bits. Sure, Twitter requires me to engage in some linguistic cartwheels to distill something down to 140 characters (especially since I’m using it to tell A WHOLE STORY via @finnras), but to me that’s a sign of creativity and facility with language, not a decline in good grammar.

   I love em, but Stewart and Colbert kind of missed the point. (Though, in my mind, the most telling zing in the Stewart bit was about news media and politicians being rotting corpses looking for something to simulate life, which isn’t about Twitter at all.) People underestimate the potential social uses of Twitter. Articles that complain about the service typically focus on the content of individual tweets rather than focusing on those tweets in context.

   Dave, you were mostly right (or totally right, from your POV) with your haiku: “blogging is writing letters – Twitter is bar chat.” Except that to me, Twitters feels more like Consortium 12th Night Party Chat, where everyone in the room at least have mutual friends in common. That may not be the case for you, where you’re seeing (perhaps) more strangers talking — in that case, the bar chat analogy is more accurate. Twitter may not ultimately function as a broadcast medium as much as it serves as a relay service for sharing ideas and thoughts with others who have similar interests, both locally and abroad.

   Sure, lots of tweets are banal references to a need for more coffee or boredom at reading reports, but there is something to be appreciated in sharing in the routines of everyday life with friends and colleagues, and even complete strangers across campus, across town or thousands of miles away. Every time I check my Twitter feed, I’m able to share in the enjoyment of daily routines and rituals: a cup of coffee, a good workout, a new episode of Battlestar Galactica.

   If you just look at an individual tweet, you miss the fact that my twitter about BSG is responding to someone else’s. Articles on Twitter never quote a tweet that starts with “@someone,” which misses one of the defining uses of Twitter — a Communication Tool. Nearly half of my tweets are replies to others. Over 80% of the posts made by @wilw or @feliciaday are replies (most of which you won’t see in your feed, due to the default values that Twitter sets, which few people ever change).

   Sure, Obama famously used Twitter during his campaign to mobilize and motivate his supporters (a bandwagon that lost of congresscritters have jumped on, which is ironic, since the President gave his final Twitter update on January 19th), but while that sort of use is interesting, it confuses the issue. Twitter is a Conversational – not Broadcasting – medium and one that can help to facilitate real-world interactions.

   It’s blamed for any number of problems; shorter attention spans, bad grammar, poor critical-thinking skills. People assume that it can only work as it was designed, a miniature, public status update (implied in Twitter’s guiding question: “What are you doing?”). Instead, users develop new uses for it, some that were clearly not predicted by its creators. It is the users that create the genres and styles that have emerged, and it’s the *users* that the pundits are really attacking when they snark about the service.

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2. Holy moley!

   I think it’s clear that Twitter has reached some sort of critical mass / breakthrough in the last few months (and not just because I’ve hopped onto it). Certainly it’s been around for quite some time.

   But when “new” communication technologies find the public eye, it’s typical to see people claiming it will destroy or damage communication as we know it, lead to illiteracy, narcissism or whatever social ill might be haunting society at any given time. They said the same thing about blogging not so very long ago, which I’m pretty sure you’ll remember posting about at the time.

   Heck, they said it about writing (“It will ruin people’s memory! Nobody will have to remember all those long sagas by memorization!”).

   In my opinion, there is significant benefit in the textual constraints created by Twitter. Writing with such limitations forces us to be as precise as possible

   I agree. Rather, it makes it a *different* mode of transportation (both in how you express and how you are received). The question, for any given user, is how or whether it’s of value.

   Actually, it’s a lot like haiku — some serious restrictions that force you to choose your words carefully.

   Dave, you were mostly right (or totally right, from your POV) with your haiku: “blogging is writing letters – Twitter is bar chat.” Except that to me, Twitters feels more like Consortium 12th Night Party Chat, where everyone in the room at least have mutual friends in common. That may not be the case for you, where you’re seeing (perhaps) more strangers talking — in that case, the bar chat analogy is more accurate. Twitter may not ultimately function as a broadcast medium as much as it serves as a relay service for sharing ideas and thoughts with others who have similar interests, both locally and abroad.

   I do find it a more pleasant, and intimate, a conversation than, say, FaceBook. And it’s more interactive than blogging. But, then, different purposes and potentials.

   My thought with bar chat was as much environmental as anything else. There’s an intimacy about it, sharing drinks and space. There’s also an imperative to use a few, chosen words to shout over the overall noise level. It’s not a good setting to debate the meaning of the universe, but there are a lot of things you *can* discuss.

   Sure, lots of tweets are banal references to a need for more coffee or boredom at reading reports, but there is something to be appreciated in sharing in the routines of everyday life with friends and colleagues, and even complete strangers across campus, across town or thousands of miles away. Every time I check my Twitter feed, I’m able to share in the enjoyment of daily routines and rituals: a cup of coffee, a good workout, a new episode of Battlestar Galactica.

   It’s the equivalent of the break room at the office. Folks wandering in to get some coffee, exchanging pleasantries, howzitgoin, lordywhataday kind of things.

   It’s blamed for any number of problems; shorter attention spans, bad grammar, poor critical-thinking skills. People assume that it can only work as it was designed, a miniature, public status update (implied in Twitter’s guiding question: “What are you doing?”). Instead, users develop new uses for it, some that were clearly not predicted by its creators. It is the users that create the genres and styles that have emerged, and it’s the *users* that the pundits are really attacking when they snark about the service.

   It is, as you note, not much different from the punditry’s disdain for blogging back before the breadth of what blogging could mean was fully realized.

   Good thoughts — and framed in a fashion far more suited to the “letter-writing” modality of blogging than trying to break it up into 140-byte chunks. 🙂 Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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3. Believe me when I say that I’m aware of the irony: on the subject of 140-character twitter posting, I responded to your one-word blog post with a full page of text.

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4. Different modes for different codes, man.

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