Recently a tweet by @librarycongress (The U.S. Library of Congress) caught my eyes while I was poking around on Twitter. The Library of Congress is going to archive all public tweets made since March, 2006 for the future generation. As per latest statistics there are over 105 million twitter users across the globe that are constantly tweeting on what’s happening in their part of the world. And the number of tweets is 50 million per day. Twitter’s real-time data and facts (read tweets) can become a rich resource to be used as a chronicle.
I wondered how Twitter has changed our lives and thought I must pen down my thoughts on it.
When I was introduced to Twitter by a friend I was skeptic about this micro-blogging site. So many questions filled up my mind – “why should I tweet when I can blog?” I was not sure whether any one will ever follow me (except my friends who were already on twitter)! “What to tweet and what not” – Twitter was quite an enigma to me then.”Is it always possible to be within the limit of 140 characters?” But gradually I found answers to all my questions. My perspective towards this micro-blogging site changed completely and I got addicted to Twitter. Now it has become such a favorite that I never mind writing an entire blog post on this. 🙂
I have been using other social networking sites of late. They are more or less similar when it comes to messaging and interaction. Twitter’s uniqueness lies in its simplicity and 140 characters limit for posting messages (read ‘tweets’). I find Twitter interesting in many ways.
The environment here is not that serious like other professional online networks and not so casual either such as the social media, even though you’ll find successful professionals from all fields on Twitter. It’s crisp and quick. It gives you freedom (you can tweet whatever you like) yet binds you in limit with short space. In other way twitter teaches you to be candid but precise; brief yet interesting.
As a social networking site Twitter nicely blends professionalism with friendliness. And it proves fruitful when the online friendship of professionals is directed to offline meeting in the name of charitable events like Twitter Festival. It will be sheer benefit of the society if we can leverage the power of twitter fraternity in a productive manner. Twitter has given the educated mass a platform to raise their voices and share their thoughts.
Twitter has already brought change in our society and thus in our life. We see more and more celebrities and eminent personalities from all spheres – be it politics, entertainment, journalism, art and literature – are joining Twitter now making it a trend. Previously it was only the media that had access to the world of celebrities and politicians. Whatever they said or did reached us in form of news via media. Now it comes directly to us (Twitter users) in form of tweets. Twitter has been able to bridge the gap.
Courtesy twitter that Shashi Tharoor can speak his mind right to his 7 lacs followers even though it has caused him a lot of trouble.
We never had any clue about what Ashton Kutcher thinks when he is on a flight before we had Twitter.
Have we ever thought of getting a glimpse into an astronaut’s mind right at the moment he is working at a space station or watching the Mother Earth from the outer space? It is Twitter that has made all these possible.
The Twitter-scope is not anymore limited within a particular status of the society for a particular purpose of socializing; rather it opens up a new horizon to the global citizen. Capturing the entire universe in just 140 characters Twitter provides a wider angle to look at things and teaches us to think differently.
Footloose Forever 