Twitter will Never Reach Ubiquity

23 Sep

Twitter escultura de arena

People keep saying that someday Twitter will reach ubiquity like Facebook.  I disagree.  Because some people are as pleased as punch to stay nestled in their past.

Everyone understands Facebook.

What’s not to understand.  Facebook looks backwards.  It replicates a social graph and a social experience that already existed before the interwebs.  Obviously, its much more efficient to upload your wedding photos to Facebook where they are immediately posted to your wall as opposed to pasting them in an coffee table album that you show to your friends one by one.  But the concept of sharing photos with friends was not created by Zuck.

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Twitter has disrupted a great many things, but I think most notably, it disrupted the impetus of human relationship.  Here’s what I mean.  In, the past all of our friendships were dictated by two constraints.

History – I’m your friend because we were in the same first grade class.

Geography – I’m your friends because we grew up on the same block.

But on twitter we develop friendships based on common interest, beliefs and ideals, irrespective of geography and history.  This, my friends, is a sociological anomaly.

And although I have no empirical evidence to back this up,  I think logic would stipulate that those of us who joined the service and continue to appreciate each new serendipitous connection were looking for something.  We were looking for people like us.  We were waiting for twitter.

But not everyone understand this.  It’s the reason my mom doesn’t get twitter.  She “doesn’t have time for new friends”.  It’s the reason teens don’t get twitter.  They are with “friends” all day, everyday.  But they haven’t grown up yet.  They don’t know how hard it is to find like-minded people.  We do.  And it’s the reason we have always loved the service.

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At the risk of sounding sappy, when I think of all of the friends I have now simply because of a hunk of servers that facilitated serendipity, I can’t wipe the smile off my face.

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Facebook may help you stay connected to your fifth grade stick ball buddy.

But Twitter helps you make friends you never knew you needed until you meet them.

And some people will never get this.  But that’s okay because there’s enough of us that do. :)

  • http://twitter.com/foodphilosophy Jennifer Iannolo

    Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That is all. :)

  • http://ajleon.me/the-opportunity-cost-of-not-taking-yourself-seriously ajleon

    :)

  • http://twitter.com/dariasteigman Daria Steigman

    “When I think of all of the friends I have now simply because of a hunk of servers that facilitated serendipity, I can’t wipe the smile off my face.” I just love this line.

    BTW, my teenage nephew and & his friends were telling me that they “just don’t get” Twitter. When I explained that my friends all hang out on Twitter the way their friends hang out on Facebook, they got it. (A little.)

  • http://www.nelsondewitt.com Nelson de Witt

    I think you’re on to something. For a lot of poeple Twitter is just a news reader or a way to get lots of “followers.” Understanding Twitter takes time and most people just won’t care to figure it out.

  • http://ajleon.me/the-opportunity-cost-of-not-taking-yourself-seriously ajleon

    Thanks, Daria. Seriously, I want to make a list just to keep record of all the friends I have made exclusively through Twitter just to recall how different my life would be right now. Lol, hopefully you made them get it. :)

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Totally agree, Nelson. Twitter appeals to certain types, generally people who love people, love stories and want connection.

  • http://www.nelsondewitt.com Nelson de Witt

    Exactly!

  • http://twitter.com/oline73 George Haines

    Insightful stuff. I think about the different directions Facebook and Twitter point us in, but I never thought about the fact that kids are already surrounded by like-minded people.

    Made think, as usual.

  • http://www.honeybeeconsulting.com startabuzz

    I don’t understand why people still compare the two networks. I don’t understand it at all. Aside from the fact that they’re both social networks, they’re entirely different animals.Twitter is fluid. It’s fast. It’s a medium for garnering information and, yes, for finding people who are like-minded (and without it, I never would have met you, my friend). I owe my business to it, not to mention innumerable new friends who, without it, would have passed through the proverbial ether.Facebook is more of a scrapbook. It’s a bigger picture of someone’s life. You can chat with me on Twitter (get a snapshot), but you can get to know *WHO I AM* on Facebook. Incidentally, I have several *very* close friends that I “met” on Facebook who are now fixtures in my life, so new does happen there. :) I treat each place differently. I don’t like one more than another; they serve wholly different purposes.Also? If Twitter is ever bigger than Facebook, I’ll eat my shoes. :D

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Thanks for the kind words, bud and thanks for stopping by. :)

  • http://twitter.com/PAWeissenstein Peter Weissenstein

    Nicely put although it is a bit more than that. As humans we desire a certain social connectivity and we are greedy as well as reluctant to let go. Facebook caters to that by letting us “reconnect” with people we knew ages ago. Although we may not have been friends with them then, time has mellowed us all and now we know more about them than we might ever have wanted to. Twitter is more immediate. The combination of the two let us (as @jeffpulver stated this morning on FB) “explore the future with an eye on the past.” The combination of immediacy is tantamount to a radio or tv news story while FB actually has the potential to be a newspaper story – more in depth, etc. I think it is less about the reality of how the programs are used today and more about their potential moving forward. I also believe that each of the services out there that rely on Social Media are starting to look at how they can be of more value to their users while realizing that everyone has to be able to share the same sandbox…

  • http://twitter.com/jeffpower jeff power

    True, true, true AJ. That’s how you and I met… and we’re now connecting MORE friends to poor villages in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Who knew!?! Love the ride with ya’ my friend!

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    I know, dude. To think, if it weren’t for twitter, my goodness we would have never even met!!

  • http://twitter.com/buskerrhymes tom godfrey

    ‘a hunk of servers that facilitated serendipity’ thats awesomely poetic

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Thank you, Tom. And thanks for stopping by the blog. :)

  • Anonymous

    Beautifully said. Twitter is not something that can be understood with the logical mind. It transcends that and you have been able to articulate that experience. I cannot explain in words what it is and even if I were to share this post with my Facebook friends, I still think they would not quite get it. Twitter definitely gives me what I did not know I needed and that’s a very good thing.

  • http://www.facebook.com/LindsayAdeleJacob Lindsay Adele

    Couldn’t have said it better myself. You are right on target!

    As a side note, I have become addicted to reading your blog.

    As someone who is new on the “go green” scene, twitter has not only facilitated new friendships but has opened my eyes to just how important sustainability is. I had no idea how many people in NJ/NYC alone truly cared about the world around us until I started seeing the hundreds of tweets on a daily basis about it. I have met some innovative thinkers and leaders on twitter and that simply would not have happened on facebook.

    I also feel that twitter is a whole separate world for me from my facebook page. My facebook friends go back to your reference of who I grew up with and geography…I know these people, I trust these people to scroll through my pictures and to see what I am up to and where I am. I very rarely accept a friend request on facebook from someone I have not personally met. Twitter is the total opposite, I would say that over 75% of the people I follow I have never met and probably will never meet and I am ok with that. That’s the beauty of twitter and facebook coexisting in my everyday life :)

  • Janet Stollery

    As I’ve said before, without you I probably wouldn’t have got started on Twitter yet. I delivered my passionate Twitter presentation yesterday to a roomful of charity peeps (some of them very large charities, not like ours), and most of them had never sent a tweet! I now consider myself a disciple of yours and proud to be able to continue the work I started with you nearly a year ago now. I’ve met some amazing people, but above all, it is just so much fun! Love to M, x

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Well said, Jeff. It is unbelievable to think about all the connections, all the laughs, all the love we would have missed out on if Twitter never existed. Crazy. Thanks for stopping by the blog, bud. :)

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Thanks for the kind words, Lindsay. It’s funny isn’t it, that people group Facebook and Twitter into the “social media/social network” basket, but they are so *vastly* different. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and stopping by the blog. :)

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Ms Janet, you have just made my morning. Very very kind words, my dear. I cannot tell you how proud I am of you. Your evolution from a digital novice to a digital native is inspiring. And now, you are the one evangelizing this new technology. You make me smile, Janet. Can’t wait to see you again in the UK soon! :)

  • http://topsy.com/ajleon.me/twitter-will-never-reach-ubiquity?utm_source=pingback&utm_campaign=L2 Tweets that mention Twitter will Never Reach Ubiquity | AJ Leon — Topsy.com

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Van Baale, AJ Leon, AJ Leon, AJ Leon, AJ Leon and others. AJ Leon said: Someone recently told me that Twitter will be as big as Facebook soon. Bullsh*t. http://t.co/Wj2NUvE [...]

  • http://davidhorne.me/2010/09/24/on-location-gso/ On Location with #GSO7 | David Horne

    [...] Twitter is connects you to your present. Facebook, on the other hand, is more a portal back to where you’ve been and who you used to be. Twitter is a great place to find and meet like minds. My friend AJ wrote a great post about this on his blog titled, Twitter will never reach ubiquity. [...]

  • http://marcedwards.blogspot.com/ Marc Edwards

    Great post AJ. You are right in that Twitter is different than facebook. As I blunder through my Twitter experience, I find I have to be much more intentional with twitter than with facebook. Twitter is forcing me to be more conscious of what I tweet and how I tweet it: twitter has made me more other’s focus.
    Again, great words.
    p.s. thank you for all help with twitter.

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    You are very welcome, Marc. I believe in twitter, and by that I mean the twitter community, the early adopters. You should try to find some tweetups in your local area. I’ve found that people that use the service, for the most part, genuinely love connecting with other humans and with personal narrative. Thanks for stopping by the blog, bud, you are *such* a valuable part of this community. :)

  • http://marcedwards.blogspot.com/ Marc Edwards

    Thank you for the advice. How do you find tweetups in an area? (again, thank you for your twitter help!) :)

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    You’re welcome. To be honest, I don’t think there is a comprehensive website of tweetups. There might be. But you can start searching twitter and use the location filter to find tweeps in your area that are tweeting about things that interest you. That would be a first step. :)

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    For some reason, Disqus never alerted me of your comment. So sorry about that, I just saw it. I agree entirely with you, I’m not sure why people do that either. I think its usually people who don’t understand the ecosystems, maybe they use them, or at least Twitter simply as a communication platform. I’m surprised that you have *met* new people on Facebook. Like brand new people you never met in real life or tweeted with?

    ps – I’ll eat my shoes too. lol

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    OMG, you are the second comment on this post I was never alerted of, so sorry. Very interesting thoughts, Peter. Love how you compare FB to a newspaper story as opposed to a sounds bite. Jeff is such a poet isn’t he ;) Thanks for stopping by, brother.

  • http://www.honeybeeconsulting.com startabuzz

    Yep. Brand new people that were just friends of friends. And now, I’m lucky enough to have a couple of them as major forces in my life.

    I love Twitter and the community it engenders. But I think Facebook is great. As with anything, I think you get out of it what you put in. My basic feeling toward those who constantly bash it is that they really haven’t tried. But that’s just me. They don’t have to like it. :)

  • http://www.honeybeeconsulting.com startabuzz

    Yep. Brand new people that were just friends of friends. And now, I’m lucky enough to have a couple of them as major forces in my life.

    I love Twitter and the community it engenders. But I think Facebook is great. As with anything, I think you get out of it what you put in. My basic feeling toward those who constantly bash it is that they really haven’t tried. But that’s just me. They don’t have to like it. :)

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Gotcha. Yeah, I agree. I’m certainly not one of those ‘Facebook sucks” people. I think its great. I think its easier for people to understand than twitter, in the same sense that its more comfortable for people at a family reunion than a party at a strangers house.

  • http://www.willmarlow.com Will Marlow

    Very true — this is one of the first blog posts I’ve read of yours (I just discovered your blog recently), but I think it was a great introduction to your writing. I look forward to reading more. Good insights.

  • http://ajleon.me ajleon

    Thanks for the kind words, Will. Really appreciate you stopping by the blog :)