One of my fellow editors here at JOAB is quite fond of Twitter. Frankly, I don’t quite give a damn about Twitter. It’s just one of those new annoying nuisances that have become a craze in the online community. I once signed up for the service, added friends, and activated IM notifications, and I was blasted with all sorts of junk a dozen times a minute. I turned it off, since then, not seeing the point why I’d like to be updated whenever a friend of mine passes gas at 3 in the morning, or when someone eats chocolate cake (like what I’m actually doing right now).

Of course, I thought this about blogging too, when it first came into popular use. So does this mean Twitter will fly like blogging did? We have yet to see.

But I’ve always thought that Twitter, like any other “personal publishing” platform will soon claim its casualties, in particular when it comes to the foot-in-mouth syndrome everyone is vulnerable to. First to fall was Steve Rubel (or at least first known person), in that dreadful I-probably-shouldn’t-have-said-that moment. And here’s what he said.

PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash,

Thing is, Steve is a top exec at top PR firm Edelman (the same Edelman of the Windows Vista/Acer Ferrari Notebook infamy). He handles lots of accounts in the tech industry, and these mostly benefit from advertisements, product placements, and reviews on PC Magazine and its affiliate publications. PC Mag, in turn, thought of boycotting all of Edelman’s clients.

Damn, that must have caused Steve to resort to a lot of forehead slapping. Here’s his letter of apology, which I think is quite sincere (yeah, basically saying it was easy to take things out of context and all that).

In a world where it’s already easy enough to steal your identity or personal information via online means, and where social engineering is key to this being successfully perpetrated, why the heck would I actively give out this stalkee information to potential evildoers? I also risk divulging too much in those fits of carelessness, drunkenness, or simple loose-lippedness.

I just finished eating chocolate cake. Moving on to blueberry cheesecake.

(Is that 140 characters already?)

By the way, my copy of PC Mag came in the mail today—it just went straight to the trash.

Oh, NY Times has an article on Twitter due out tomorrow. Got that link from Steve Rubel’s twitter. And no, I didn’t get it via IM (I actually went to his status page).

I’ve read about the pitfalls of Twitter’s being used as a public chatroom. People are likening Twitter to CB radio , which was popular from the 1960’s to the 80’s*. While Twitter’s primary purpose is for people to answer the question what are you doing right now? a lot of people are publicly sending messages to each other, responding to one another’s tweets.

And you know what, I think you can’t blame them (actually, us since I’m fond of chatting via Twitter, too). Twitter is essentially a social network, but it lacks most of the sophisticated features that other social networks have, like the actual network of friends (being friends in twitter is just one level deep: your friends and your followers, and no concept of friend-of-a-friend).

And unlike a blogging service, readers cannot comment on tweets posted by twitter users. So what if you wanted to respond to a post? Just tweet yourself!

Hence it’s common to see Twitter updates bearing names of other Twitter members, which means that particular update is intended for the other person. So a typical thread would look like so:

Bob: Having Lunch in a while. 5 minutes ago
Jim: @Bob What’s for lunch? 4 minutes ago
Bob: @Jim Steak and pasta. Yum! 3 minutes ago
Jim: @Bob Enjoy! 3 minutes ago

... and so forth.

What’s wrong with that? Well, it’s just like sending instant messages that are readable by the public. And that could have privacy implications, especially if you’re haphazard with what you tweet about. So you’d better not chat on Twitter about things you’d rather keep to yourself, or a select group of people. Even if your Twitter updates are restricted to friends only, that still means that all of your friends can read whatever you’re writing, even if it’s intended for one of them only.

I think chatting via Twitter is all right if you’re fully aware that tweets are intended to be public in the first place. So Twitter should not just be about what you’re doing right now, but also what you want to say right now.

*Essentially because CB comprised of non-secure public broadcasts, so everyone can listen in to conversations.

Last time I raved about Twitter, the latest hot thing in the Web 2.0 world (okay, it’s been up for quite a while now, but it’s only now that its popularity is taking off). But not everyone is happy with Twitter. And they do have their reasons. One such person is Abe Olandres, erstwhile editor of the Blog Herald, and my problogger compatriot. He cites five reasons why we won’t see him on Twitter.

1. It’s so like blogging in 1999 all over again.
2. I’m always invisible (or offline) in all my Instant Messengers. Why would I want to be visible on Twitter?
3. I don’t like to be watched.
4. I don’t have enough time.
5. Imagine Twittering on your phone. It could get really expensive.
   

I’m aware Abe is usually busy with a lot of business and personal undertakings, and being on Twitter is just like telling everyone you’re open to chat. But I think he misses the point when it comes to the microblogging aspect of Twitter. Sure, it’s like 1999 all over again, with micro updates and super-short entries. But then for me, Twitter isn’t meant to replace my regular blog/s. Twitter is meant to compliment my regular blogs, where I would rather post meatier and more substantial material.

Twitter is not for everyone, especially those who value their privacy much (to the point of being paranoid?). But for me, you don’t necessarily have to answer the question what are you doing right now (in 140 characters or less). Some use Twitter as a CB radio of sorts—to broadcast messages to their network of friends (and the public as well, whomever might be listening in).

If you’re not much for Twitter, what are your reasons?

I’ve been an avid blogger for a couple of years now. Sometimes I just get the urge to micro-blog, or live-blog. That means I want to post just snippets of text or code about what I’m currently into, or what I’m currently thinking. Full-fledged posts sometimes take the wind out of me because I have to think what to write, look for links (if ever I need to cite any info), or even worry about my grammar and spelling. There have been times when I’ve posted one-liners!

But when I re-conceptualized my blog, I thought of focusing more on substantial posts. After all, it’s a waste of online real estate to just post one-liners. They’re not very good for SEO, and readers might think I’m a lazy poster (sometimes I am!). And nobody really reads those one-liners, much less post on the comment threads. After all, you can’t respond to a one-liner post much. Same goes if it’s just one short paragraph.

But when I started a Twitter account, I just got hooked. I enjoyed being able to post those one-line messages somewhere. And what’s even better is that people actually respond to my “tweets,” no matter how nonsensical or trivial they are.

My short (and very inconclusive) analysis: it’s because of the network aspect of Twitter that gives it so much interaction. Blogs sure are interactive, but your “friends” in blogging are loosely-defined—there are the blogrolls, in-post links, and such. But with Twitter and other more social systems, your friends are defined, and they get automagically updated whenever you post something. Hey, you can also post from IM or even through your mobile phone via SMS.

Sure, you also get these on other social networks that bundle in blogging services, like MySpace, Friendster, and even Multiply. But Twitter makes it so cool, in that you don’t even have to give much effort in what you write. After all, you’re limited to 140 words. And it’s mostly just to answer the question “what are you doing right now?”

So, what are you doing right now? Here’s what I’ve been up to lately.