Tweet

I was recently forced to join Twitter so that I could research it's usefulness for our company. So far, I would have to say that it is as creepy and self-involved as it is an ingenious marketing tool. That is, if you actually have stuff to "tweet" about. (Yes, the verb is "tweet" and not "twittering")

When I signed up, I was asked to pick people I know through G-mail that are on twitter so that I could follow them. Following is basically like stalking. Your homepage has a list of all of the people you follow and their most recent updates. I suppose it could be compared to the most recent Facebook update, but I still like Facebook better than any other social networking site because it is clean and interactive and constantly becoming more innovative. But back to Twitter...

When I was clicking people to follow, I noticed that my mom was on Twitter already. Seriously, mom? I know you're reading this right now and that you will probably comment on this post, but what on earth would provoke you to join twitter? The only logical reason would be for client research. But no offense; who is actually following you? Do you know enough people on twitter that would care about your daily updates? And do you even have enough going on to provide daily updates? I'm not trying to single you out, but I'm just using you as an example.

Are people's lives so boring that they need to be involved in everyone else's life also? Sorry Ashton, but I don't give a flying fuck what you think about Demi's new haircut.

On the other hand, Twitter is an excellent tool for businesses, especially those with event listings and special offers. What better way to alert people than through a mass communication site - for FREE! As long as a business has enough content to update people with, there is no reason they shouldn't be twittering these updates. However, I don't think Twitter would work for companies that are static, such as Heinz Ketchup. Besides that weird color change promotion a few years back, when has Heinz been anything but a ketchup company?

So, if you're on twitter you better have some pretty friggin fantastic updates for me. And if I see a duplicate update on Facebook, well I've just lost all respect for your social life.