Twitter is a really strange service. When I first caught wind of this, my immediate reaction was; do we really need to be pouring more ephemeral nonsense into an internet already smothering with useless information?
I have to say that after using Twitter myself for the past few weeks, and playing around with the ActionScript 3 API they provide, that this service does have a certain temporal beauty to it. This is a somewhat controlled experiment which does not allow for much abuse as something like a MySpace:
- A user is restricted to the number of characters that can be used- effectively cutting off anyone from saying too much…
- The native interface, while somewhat customizable, is not prone to so much abuse by heady 12 yr. olds.
- The data is, by nature, temporal- so, not much needs to be said. Right to the point- like small bursts of thought.
I cannot say how long I will be using the service, but for now it is an interesting and unique method of communication which does [in my mind] lend itself to a certain natural attraction.