The way I see it, Facebook is like dinner out with a friend. You have time to catch up, see what each other is doing, share pictures of the dog and the kids, make some witty jokes and maybe even make a date to get together for dinner. Twitter on the other hand is like that water cooler or coffee room at work. A place for very quick conversations. “Hey did you see lost last nigh WTF is up with Sawyer? “Hows your day going, did you finish that project?” “Do you need help on that report?” Little updates to keep us connected to each other. But Twitter, or more to the point the people have seem to be joining twitter are changing
Let’s take that water cooler idea a little further, imagine that you are at the water cooler and here comes Sally. You’ve worked with Sally only for a little while but see seems nice, you know she has a couple of kids, a love of knitting and a good sense of humor. However, when Sally get to the water cooler she whips out a box of girl guide cookies and start talking you into buying them. It’s for he kids so you buy but feel a bit pressured. If it keeps up you eventually avoid Sally. Now imagine you just started working with Nick. You don’t know much about Nick, but he is coming your way so you stop and listen. Your expecting a “hi how are you” or a quote from his favorite movie or even a link to an LOLcat, but that’s not what you get. All of a sudden Nick start yelling at you about HOW EXCITED HE IS ABOUT HIS NEW BUSINESS AND HOW EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT AND YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT HIS SITE!!!!. You will like lock your office door when you see Nick
I am starting to see this more and more on Twitter. and this article kinda points to why. I my opinion Twitter is not about self promotion but more and more people are joining with that as their only goal that they are starting to drown out the conversation. Yes you can choose to not follow or to unfollow but some of it sneaks in through people you like following most of the time (I’m talking about followfriday). If everyone ends up self promoting on twitter then no one will be listening.
Twitter is very similar to the way most of our interaction occurs in the “real world”. Don’t believe me on that one? Make notes on the conversations you have through out the day with coworkers, coffee shop employees, in line at the store. You’ll notice that most conversations are under a couple of minutes and rarely get deep and heart felt. (This is why I love twitter, I see so much value in those quick connections we make everyday they are part of what helps us stay grounded.)
I am finding that I am spending more time blocking new twitters with nothing but links in their updates, and un-following people with tons of #followfriday name dropping. As more and more people “leverage the power” of twitter to sell their books , t shirts, how to make a million on twitter ebooks then less people will be bothered to join and participate in twitter. And then it just becomes another place on the web were the only people there are the salesmen trying to sell to each other. I would imagine that is what an Amway convention is like. So I am asking you, if you are going join the conversation, bring something to the party other than your opinions of you
