I can see how various elements of twitter can be useful. I see how it changes the dynamics of various aspect.
However, if we are going to bring up McLuhan, Will, let's take a real analysis of the medium. The 140 character limit means you can't say much, which means the value of the tweet is in immediate impact. And the value of the device as a whole is in the ability to screen tweets to get a bead on a topic. There are various twitter-using devices, like election.twitter.com that are mining tweets to give a message, but that message is cacophonous. It is also trite. It is reinforcing what is mainly negative. It reinforces ignorance, group-think, misinformation, hegemony, trend-following, and impulsive behavior. >From the perspective of McLuhan it is extremely hot, and that is why it might have taken off so fast. However, it is also mainly valueless. So it is analogous to gossip, only on a mass scale and syndicated. It creates a culture where the quick idea propagates and the well-structured is too slow to take hold. It is functionally the opposite of intelligence. It is a lot like flocking behavior, only textual. It is too slim to afford good arguments, it is too frantic to afford good thought, and it is too uncontrolled to afford good masking. If you could control what you saw with a more meaningful value than who you watch, it could be of real value, but by using that paradigm, it forces the user to be constantly screening garbage. Even a simple Bayesian filter and a thumbs-up thumbs-down system could create a valuable system. Where the meaningful is heard and the various garbage is squelched. Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=34682 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
