{"id":13394,"date":"2010-09-15T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T08:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=13394"},"modified":"2010-09-15T10:51:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T08:51:00","slug":"twitter-is-not-a-social-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/15\/twitter-is-not-a-social-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter is not a social network"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just a couple of days ago I had a discussion with a friend of mine about Twitter<\/a>. \u00a0He is not too much into social networks, but hearing all the time about Twitter, he decided to give it a shot again, and still felt that it was in no way suitable for him. \u00a0Normally, that would be enough for me to jump into my zealotical advocacy mode. \u00a0However this time I felt different. \u00a0I said that I’m not all that hot about Twitter anymore as I used to be.<\/p>\n

You see, back in a day, Twitter had two things important to me, that it lost on the way to where it is now. \u00a0The first one was SMS gateway. \u00a0People could interact with Twitter via SMS. \u00a0This was important to me, because I could practically get anybody register at Twitter. \u00a0My grandparents know how to send SMS, using their pre-historic mobile phones. \u00a0Also, SMS coverage is way better, more reliable, and cheaper than any mobile Internet connection. \u00a0Unfortunately, Twitter limited its SMS gateway from global coverage to only a selection of countries (US, UK, etc), which don’t include the countries where I or my friends and family live. \u00a0A huge disappointment.<\/p>\n

Secondly, back in a day, Twitter was about status updates. \u00a0That was partially enforced by the SMS user interface, where you just couldn’t assume that everyone has a browser nearby or even an Internet connection. \u00a0So the messages were more of the text and less of the links. \u00a0With SMS gateway going away, and with plenty of online marketing and PR people joining Twitter, this was also gone. \u00a0Now, most Twitter messages contain a link to an external resource.<\/p>\n

I think that that also changed the culture of a place. \u00a0Before, 140 character limitation had a very good reason to be in place – that’s how many characters there are in an SMS message. \u00a0People were encouraged to formulate their updates within this limit. \u00a0Now that Twitter updates are mostly links, nobody cares about that limit. \u00a0Why would I want to limit myself to 140 characters, when I can use as much of them as I want and just tweet a link to my text?<\/p>\n

So, if it’s not a social network with status updates anymore, what is it? \u00a0A news source? \u00a0But we had RSS for that, didn’t we? \u00a0Yes, we did, and we still do. \u00a0But RSS works differently. \u00a0RSS is more of a source-based system. \u00a0You pick your sources that you trust and want to follow – CNN, Slashdot, etc – and you subscribe to their RSS feed. \u00a0This will make sure that you get all published items, whether you are online or not. \u00a0If you’ve got a new interest or hobby – just find a few more sources of wisdom and subscribe to their RSS feeds. \u00a0Handling too much? \u00a0Just unsubscribe from some and you done.<\/p>\n

Twitter is different. \u00a0It’s not so much as a source-based system, but an event-based system. \u00a0It doesn’t matter who you follow and what your interests are. \u00a0If something happens, you’ll know about it on Twitter. \u00a0A gadzillion people will tweet and re-tweet about it, and you will eventually catch it. \u00a0Or you can search for keywords that you have interest in, and then it will work very much like Google Alerts, letting you know about tweets that matched, no matter who or where posts them.<\/p>\n

I am, personally, not a big news person. \u00a0I don’t care much about news. \u00a0What I care about are opinions and thoughts about news. \u00a0So for me personally, Twitter is not that interesting, because it only tells me what happens. \u00a0Slashdot and a collection of my other two hundred or so feeds tell me what happened and what people think about it.<\/p>\n

For the last year or so, I only new that I am floating away from Twitter. \u00a0Yes, it’s there. \u00a0Yes, it’s getting more and more popular. \u00a0Yes, I’m pushing a bunch of links to it too – my blog posts announcements, some delicious bookmarks, an YouTube favorites. \u00a0Occasionally I even tweet a thought or a quote. \u00a0But I don’t read and follow it as much as I used to. \u00a0For the last couple of weeks or so, I was trying to figure out why, and now I think I have.<\/p>\n

But until today that was only me and my thoughts. \u00a0Today however I got a confirmation of my thoughts being in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Kevin Thau, Twitter’s VP for business and corporate development, announced during a presentation at Nokia World 2010 today that everyone’s favorite micro-blogging network is\u00a0not <\/em>actually a social network.\ufeff<\/p>\n

It’s not, you say?<\/p>\n

No, says Thau: Twitter is for news. Twitter is for content. Twitter is for information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\ufeffReadWriteWeb<\/a> is one of many resources reporting from Nokia World 2000.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

Just a couple of days ago I had a discussion with a friend of mine about Twitter. \u00a0He is not too much into social networks, but hearing all the time about Twitter, he decided to give it a shot again, and still felt that it was in no way suitable for him. \u00a0Normally, that would … Continue reading Twitter is not a social network<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62,1334],"tags":[918,1152,1111],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-13394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","category-web-work","tag-announcements","tag-social-networks","tag-twitter"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10952,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/04\/twitter-limits-outgoing-sms-to-250-per-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":13394,"position":0},"title":"Twitter limits outgoing SMS to 250 per week","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"December 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I just noticed that there is now a limit of outgoing SMS messages from Twitter to your mobile phone.\u00c2\u00a0 Current number is 250 per week.\u00c2\u00a0 Apparently, this was introduced some time ago (a couple of weeks?), but only noticed it now.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no mention of it in Twitter Blog.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10682,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/23\/sms-alerts-for-new-email-via-twitter\/","url_meta":{"origin":13394,"position":1},"title":"SMS alerts for new email via Twitter","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As I have mentioned previously, Twitter has many uses. Today, I used it to implement a quick and simple solution for SMS alerts. A certain someone (a client of ours) wanted to receive an SMS message on his phone every time an email arrives to his mailbox. Sounds simple, right?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10856,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/08\/send-sms-to-google-calendar-via-twitter\/","url_meta":{"origin":13394,"position":2},"title":"Send SMS to Google Calendar via Twitter","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I've already wrote about why I love Google Calendar so much.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the main features that makes the difference for me is that one of SMS reminders.\u00c2\u00a0 As unlikely as it seems, I'm not always behind the computer, but my mobile is always near by.\u00c2\u00a0 So reminding me of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10677,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2007\/03\/14\/are-you-on-twitter\/","url_meta":{"origin":13394,"position":3},"title":"Are you on Twitter?","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Twitter has been the noise of the blogosphere for the last few weeks. Even though the project is much much older than that. Executive summary: Twitter is a great mix of blogging, instant messaging, SMS communications, RSS feeds, social networking, and fun. It's sounds complicated and foggy, but in fact\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15511,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/15\/ifttt-if-this-then-that-is-awesome\/","url_meta":{"origin":13394,"position":4},"title":"ifttt – if this then that is awesome","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"September 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are somehow involved with online tools, publishing, or social networks, then you should definitely check out ifttt. \u00a0It is an\u00a0abbreviation for \"if this then that\" and it is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread. ifttt is an extremely easy, or perhaps even trivial, tool that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/ifttt-500x342.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15860,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/07\/twitter-stories\/","url_meta":{"origin":13394,"position":5},"title":"Twitter Stories","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The other day, Twitter announced a new website of theirs - Twitter Stories. \u00a0Yes, of course, that's a part of their marketing effort and they are promoting their own services. \u00a0But it's not just that. \u00a0It is an excellent compilation of stories which show kindness, compassion and humanity - things\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Twitter-Stories-500x281.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13394"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=13394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}