CONFESSIONS OF A TWIT AND THE IGNORANCE OF CROWDS

It was innocent, I swear.

Several months ago after hearing “are you on Twitter” from more friends than I care to know I have (the ones that write on my Facebook wall), I decided to find out what all the twittering was about.

At first it was a quiet, non-event. I was following no one and no one was following me. So I roamed about until the Twitterati decided it was time for me to “invite” all my contacts from all my contact lists to join me in this adventure. No way. With several thousand contacts I was not about to allow access to my files. I cannot imagine the nightmarish floodgate opening with that number of invites! I picked my way through several contacts and friends I knew were already over the edge.

And then Oprah happened.

Notices that I was being followed by people I had no business knowing or wanting to know arrived daily in my in-box. By now I was following over 400 “Twits”, spending more time on the site than I care to reveal.

Did I care that their train was late or that there was rain in San Francisco? Was it important for me to know you just finished baking muffins or that the voting in Woodbridge was over?

It was time to purge.

Any DAMs (Dumb Ass Messages) solicited an “unfollow” by me. Most Twits that were incessant … unfollow. I am thankfully down to following 170 and my life is simpler and more manageable.

Where is this non-profit business model headed? No doubt the founders will walk away with a mountain of money. As did the founders of MySpace and FaceBook …. All of them having yet to show a profit. They were the communications channel du jour. A novelty. A fad. They will continue to hang on for a while, perhaps years until another technology replaces them.

The best definition for Twitter that I found on-line: “Staccato Bursts of Bullshit” by George Parker on his blog, AdScam.