February 1, 2010 is Officialy "Stop Microblogging Forever Day"

This is a liberating experience. I'm typing. And I can keep typing and not worry about some stupid artificial 140 character limit or having to go back through my post and trim down urls so it all fits in this tidy little space of this hour's pithy little thought. It's also liberating knowing that what I type isn't going to pop up and distract a knowledge worker with their notification widget of choice.

The most liberating emotion of all though follows my uninstalling the last twitter client on my set of available computing machinery and knowing that I don't have to be distracted by hourly shouts for attention, nearly each like a 50s paper boy on the street corner with a minor twist: "Extra! Extra! Read all about it, I exist! Me! Me! Me!" Wait, was that 140 characters? Fuck it, even a goddamn paper-boy didn't have to worry about that kind of shit.

If you have no fucking idea what I'm talking about (likely not since the 5 or more people who read this blog are probably programmers), then all I have to say is: "Awesome, you're one of the lucky people who hasn't suffered keeping up with many horrible trends in communication. Let's have a beer sometime and communicate like real human beings do."

If you do know what talking about, then yes, Twitter or any microblogging platform in general - and I don't give a shit if it's open source, a bad idea coupled with a bad implementation is just bad. What does any self-respecting human being think when they hear words like: "tweet" or "twitterific." Our primordial fight or flight reactions should have told us that this is all so very "not cool" and any association with it will transmute into bad experiences of being picked on by the mean, fat bully during recess.

5 Years From Now No One Will Give a Shit About Twitter

I'm not profit, but I believe this with 90% certainty. The more amusing background this claim is that right now virtually no one gives a shit about Twitter. "Oh, but CNN uses Twitter!", you say as you watch the evening news and adore the little Twitter logo at the bottom of the screen, "Follow us on Twitter!" But before you grab the lotion and tissue to celebrate mainstream media's "embrasing" the microblogging platform please open your eyes to another reality. You know your other friends who don't work in the tech industry? You know, that big fat slice of the demographics pie whose only exposure to the Internet is for the usual shit: listening to music at work, catching up with people on facebook, shopping on craigslist, etc. Ask them the question: "What do you think about Twitter?" I can say 100% of the people I know in this category (and the majority of my friends are) fall into one of two response categories:

1. What is Twitter?
2. Eh, isn't that the same thing as Facebook status updates?

To your friends in category (1) you can describe Twitter and microblogging in general and they'll then say: "Eh, isn't that the same thing as Facebook status updates?" Or if they fall into category (2) immediately you can try to sell them on Twitter and the "less is more" philosophy, yada yada. And then they'll probably say something like: "Why not just write a normal blog, and when you feel like writing less, just write less."

So broadly speeking, virtually everyone falls into a higher-level category, or the "Don't give a shit" bucket. Over the next 5 years as Twitter tries to make money - god, I hope they don't - they'll be faced with this reality: people actually don't give a shit about microblogging. And Twitter really is just like "Facebook status upates" as your "technically illiterate" friends claim. The media will abandon of it's minor fling. (Let's describe this "fling" clearly: Twitter is basically the nerdy kid getting invited to the popular kid's table for a a few week before they find out he plays Dungeons and Dragons.)

In closing let met say: People like reading. People like reading more than 140 characters at a time, which shouldn't come as a surprise. Long live writing in it's natural form. People don't like being notified when you finished drinking a tasty pumpkin latte. If you use twitter, at least try providing links to content people might enjoy.