Practical uses of Twitter: is it the right tool for the job?

February 14, 2008 / Filed under: Family, Lifestyle, Technology, Twitter

Twitter has it's practical uses, and it's social network uses. A good article from the New York Times focuses on a practical, real world use for Twitter - keeping in touch with family members.

... I thought Twitter would be perfect for my purposes. The service allows users to text a message of up to 140 characters to an unlimited number of people simultaneously, from anywhere. Anytime.

In theory, the five members of my immediate family could use our cellphones to broadcast our locations, kind of like a G.P.S. with words.

Sounds like a great use of Twitter, but for reasons unclear, Twitter has a very slow adoption rate amongst certain demographics.

These criticisms confounded me. I thought it would have been a cinch to get my wired family twittering like parakeets. After all, my daughters are "supercommunicators," ... because every day they interact with friends through multiple channels of communication - including cellphones, text messages, instant messages, e-mail and face-to-face conversations.

The article goes on to explain that a possible reason for the restraint, is that Twitter could be perceived as surveillance:

"But their perception is it's surveillance." One of the main reasons people embrace social media - Facebook, for instance - is to create identities for themselves and control other people's perceptions of them.

Perhaps, in this case, Twitter is simply not the right tool for the job.

I, for one, would love it if my own family used Twitter to keep everyone abreast to their where-abouts and even what they're thinking. I think we'd all be a little closer and more aware of each other's lives.

It's all about using the technology that's available, which makes your life easier, and keeps you more informed.

For example:

  • Why text three or four people separately, if there are ways to update everyone at once?
  • Why log in to instant-message and update your away message, when you can just Twitter it?

For practical purposes, Twitter has a lot of advantages.

Comments/Mentions

# Kevin M. Keating at 2/14/2008 9:00 am cst

Matt, I definitely agree with you here. Practically, there are several great reasons for families to use Twitter. And certainly there are similar reasons for them to use other social networks as well. But, as we all know, there are certain things we want to say that aren't meant for all audiences - whether it's a story about a weekend at college we want to keep from colleagues but share with our frat buddies, or work-related stuff that we think our friends will be annoyed by.

Network segmentation, privacy controls, social permissions - these are the big questions that utilities like Twitter and bigger networks will have to tackle going forward. And implementing ever greater and more granular control without sacrificing ease-of-use is going to be one of the hardest parts of getting there.