I don’t know Twitter’s mission statement, but to me it seems like it should involve enabling stream-of-consciousness communication. When I look at heavy Twitter users (especially those with iPhones), it is close to stream-of-consciousness — it seems like they’re sending every other thought to Twitter. But it’s not stream-of-consciousness for most people, there’s too much overhead in posting to Twitter.
It seems to me that if Twitter had some spare cash, it would be wise to look into developing some more advanced technology. The iPhone is very close to wearable computing, but I’m sure there’s some clever ideas in the wearable computing area that could be adopted and branded by Twitter. There’s a great opportunity for them to pull a trick like Apple did with the iPhone, and bring this technology to mass-market in a nice slick package. It’s a natural extension of their current business, and it’s a technology that’s coming — a nice time to catch the wave.
I am definitely waiting for the next Twitter but in a different context. In a world where it is that easy to share data on a stream-of-consciousness level it will only introduce a new level of noise that I personally don’t want to hear. It’s a reason I 1) Don’t have a myspace. 2) Have a bare-bones, closed down facebook account, and 3) have a completely open LinkedIn account.
I think Plurk or Pownce would be great on that level though. And I believe a lot of people would flock to those two services in the hopes (as you’ve heard me argue before) that someone will care what they have to say on a stream-of-conscious basis.
But for now I enjoy the level of intimacy and infrequency of messages on twitter. It doesn’t disrupt from my day and when I do receive updates they are always well thought out. I know that I do my best to fit everything I want to say into that 140 characters, often rewording my twit (sfw) to fit everything I want to say in.
I’m not one to jump on every social network that comes by, and consciously weigh the benefits. I love Pownce for sharing stuff – it totally replaced my need for yousendit.com, once I upgraded Pownce to the pro account. I also use it for events. Links and messages, not so much. Not because anyone isn’t listening, its that no one is communicating.
And with twitter its the same. I treat it like a conversation, and send more replies than I do new tweets. The information stream may seem like stream of consciousness, and some people do use it at such. However, at conferences and other local events its an invaluable in getting folks to meet up at the same places. You twitter your locale, and invite folks to meet you, and in my experience they join you 10% of the time. That’s better odds than email – in my opinion.
As far as integrating twitter into mobile computing, I think we’re just seeing the effects that iPhone, and the Android platform on the horizon will bring to these services. Location awareness will unlock at lot, and integrating photos (a’la the twitterific iPhone app) is a great start. And when you start to realize the ecosystem that a simple idea like twitter has spawned (hash tags, summize, et al) you also see that there is room to grow.
Its the end of the 2.0 era. 3.0 will be upon us soon, but the network effect of status updates has completely transformed the way I use the web. It used to seem like a river of information, that was hard to filter. Now its a water fall of social interactions with human filters built in. All it takes is participation – spectators will be left out every time.
Billy: I see your point about not wanting stream of consciousness from everyone. I don’t imagine that it would act the exact same way Twitter does now, nor would I want it to. I have enough work to do keeping up with my own consciousness. I figure it would transform into a different service, where you could “focus” on a particular person and get more detail, otherwise, most of their content would be abstracted away. It would almost be like having psychic powers, except presumably there’d be some type of “psychic firewall” in place. I don’t want you looking around every nook and cranny of my brain 😀
Eric: I have read several thoughts on how participation is one of the hallmarks of Web 2.0. It’s easier than ever to be a producer of information, and the stream-of-consciousness seems like an inevitable step. Have you seen 14-year-olds at the mall with their phones? They’re not far from stream-of-consciousness.
Honestly, the impetus for this blog post was looking at Scoble’s Twitter. It felt very much like looking inside his head.