Bitter About Twitter

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the frustrations and annoyances experienced by users of the social networking site Twitter. This article confirms my suspicions about what it must be like to use this service, which is why I never had any interest in joining it or any other similar service. It serves as an anecdotal data point to help confirm a suspicion that I've long had: the popularity of social software that consists of one-way streams of information stems from the exhibitionists, not the voyeurs. In other words, everyone wants to be heard, but they don't realize that very few care what they have to say.

I first realized this several years ago when software and services that put a what-song-I'm-listening-to-now indicator on your web site became popular. I never understood the popularity of this concept. If you were to stream your music over the internet somehow so that I could tune in and listen, then I could see the value of that. Or if you're a friend of mine, a list of your favorite bands and albums might be interesting and allow me to get to know your tastes better. But why on earth should I care what happens to be playing in your personal music player right now? Especially since I don't know your opinion of it, or why its playing. For example, you could be listening to a streaming music feed over which you have no control of the content, so I don't even know for a fact that this is a song that you like, or will ever hear again.

Then I realized that these services were popular because the service itself is consumed by the person serving the information, not the person consuming the information. And the person serving the information doesn't realize that no one cares. Because clearly your taste in music is so great, and your life so interesting, that everyone really wants to know what song is playing in iTunes on your computer right now, right? Even though they can't tune in and listen along with you, they just really need to know!

So I had the same reaction when I first followed a link to the front page of Twitter. The description right at the top reads, "A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?" Well, I'm typing a blog post. And I just scratched my nose, because it itched. After posting this, I plan to go to the bathroom.

Did you really need to know that?