Following on from my recent post about quitting facebook, it would seem that despite reports about social network fatigue, millions of people out there are still obsessed with telling you they are in the line for a latte, and there seems to be no sign that the masses are growing tired of that shit!
The cool kids are now upping their dose of the social net by now updating their facebook status as well as ‘tweeting’ to the watching world using Twitter, a social network that restricts its users to status updates of no more than 140 characters.
But when our attention spans are no longer able to stay focused to the end of the 140 characters limit of a ‘tweet’ we’ll need to condense our shit down yet again and find a new service to tell everyone that we’re ‘in lne 4 latte @ strbks.”
Enter stage left – Flutter. Squeeze your minute by minute existence into a 26 character limited ‘flap’ that your followers will be able to read in a third of the time they used to spend reading your ‘tweets.’ Flutter will even take your facebook status updates and your tweets and compress them for you! (See the video below.)
Okay, so flutter isn’t real. But the scary thing is that it took you a few moments of watching that video to be sure it was a spoof, and if that doesn’t highlight how dumb this social networking gig is, then nothing will!
Speaking at the South by Southwest tech conference in May, cyberpunk writer, Bruce Sterling, controversially suggested that the clearest symbol of poverty is dependence on “connections” like the Internet, Skype and texting. “Poor folk love their cellphones!” He said.
According to Sterling, “the man of leisure savors solitude, or intimacy with friends — original things that stay where they are and cannot be copied and corrupted and shot around the globe with a few clicks of a keyboard.”
I don’t really agree with his take on the ‘social net’ but I do think there is something to his theory that connections are liabilities that we pretend are assets.
I know, I know, Twitter and the like can have some good uses. In fact a group of friends and I will be using Twitter to ‘microblog’ our trek to John O’Groats in a £100 car this August. Will doing that will make me see the value of being a ‘twit’ I wonder?
Of course, as more of us get ‘smart phones’ the possibilities greatly expand for social network fans. I just hope that iPhone users who use ‘Toilet tracker‘ and the crap filled social networks know that there are some lines you just don’t cross when sharing your shit.
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What the heck is twitter?
Why I don’t get facebook
Get your face on my blog
Connectivity is poverty
Wrote the following comment on May 15, 2009 at 7:15 pm
v v fny ♥ the vdo
Wrote the following comment on May 16, 2009 at 12:34 am
Bruce Sterling is a dick!
Wrote the following comment on May 16, 2009 at 12:34 am
No really.. He is!
Wrote the following comment on May 16, 2009 at 12:38 am
I was talking to a friend about how I hired a ghost writer to keep my various business related blogs updated. He took it upon himself to open a twitter account in my name and he tweets for me. I get a kick out of reading what I’m doing at any given moment. Apparently I’m a greedy drunk. He won’t tell me who the profile pic is of.
Wrote the following comment on May 16, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Very funny video to start off our Saturday :) And, just when the world felt stressful enough, along comes social networking fatigue! HA!
Wrote the following comment on May 18, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Funny. I actually like Twitter and the ongoing conversation it seems to promote. But as someone who works in this social media game I wonder how twitter will make money.
Wrote the following comment on May 20, 2009 at 7:52 pm
See I really like Twitter. I find it useful, Ioften don’t get around to having big updates from people and very poor at keeping up with people on Facebook.
Twitter means I can, at a glance, find out how a mate is doing and say hi.
I’m actually quite surprised you aren’t all over twitter. Seems like your kind of thing.
Wrote the following comment on May 21, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Its mainstream Josh, Simon doesn’t do mainstream. Find him a social networking site nobody has heard of and he’ll be championing it before you know it :-)
Wrote the following comment on May 21, 2009 at 5:45 pm
As I have said many times before, I don’t feel the need to tell anyone what I am having for dinner, where I am at every given moment, or how bug the dump I just had was! Twitter ‘enables’ people to avoid meaningful interaction. I won’t feel like I don’t know what you’ve been up to when I see you next Josh because guess what… I’ll ask you. And if that’s next week, next year, or in three years, I’ll still be your friend. That’s how my social network works and its been working that way for years :-)
Wrote the following comment on May 21, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I love twitter!!!!!!
Wrote the following comment on May 22, 2009 at 5:48 am
love this post!
Wrote the following comment on May 25, 2009 at 1:46 am
simon you already are a twit =]
jk just had to say it cause u set urself up for that one.
luv ya!