Out of my face, Facebook. Meet your maker, MySpace. Prepare to be trampled by Twitter.
After watching friends and family get sucked into the vortex of Facebook and MySpace -- you know it's true -- I decided to instead become an early adopter of Twitter.
Seriously, Twitter is fun. Facebook looks like a JOB! No tacky, yakky social networking sites for me.
Technically, Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Updates are capped at 140 characters, or about as many words as you can say in one breath.
In the beginning, Twitter was filled with ruminations on grilled cheese sandwiches and self-indulgent commentaries. (Did you really need to tell the universe you were going to Walmart?)
Nowadays, though, Twitter is a great place to track trends, rumors and news. It's our national coffee shop. Just search a topic and you'll get the latest gossip. As I write, some of the hot topics on Twitter are Ted Kennedy (rest his soul), H1N1 and Apple.
Here are 10 reasons you should join me onboard the Twitter train.
* Face it, we have become a nation of windbags. Twitter's forced brevity is as bracing as a face full of ice water.
* Hemingway would have loved Twitter. Twain, too.
* Twitter users don't have "friends," we have "followers." Clearly, that makes Twitter users superior people. At any moment, I may break bad and form a cult.
* On Facebook, I hear that shady characters from your third-grade past come offering you "friendship." How weird is that? On Twitter, one of my followers just sent me a link to a cool video of two Euro-women doing bicycle tricks.
* Young people on Facebook are delusional. They think they can blast their boss to 300 of their closest friends and nobody will snitch. Dream on, kids. People talk. At least with Twitter, your bad judgment is limited to 20 words.
* Facebook junks up your e-mail. Twitter simply alerts you when you have a new "follower," which shoots happy sauce directly into your brain.
* Twitter opens you up to other cultures. I have followers in China, Belgium, London, Holland and Schenectady, N.Y. I'm hoping to get a follower in Dunlap, Tenn. (A Dunlapino?)
* If you're careful, you can play around on Twitter without ever revealing anything important about yourself. On Facebook, your life is an open book. This comes into play if you ever find yourself at a party wearing underwear on your head.
* Twitter is to caffeine as Facebook is to tequila.
* No offense, but Twitter is built for men. If you can't say it in two sentences, it probably doesn't need to be said. Right guys? Peace, out.
(The previous thought took exactly 140 characters.)
Kennedy is the content editor of the Times Free Press Life sections and writes the “Life Stories” column. Previously, he was the first Sunday editor of the Times Free Press. Before Chattanooga’s newspapers were merged in 1999, Kennedy was the coordinating editor of the Chattanooga Times, where he had previously been an education reporter, feature writer and team leader. His first newspaper job was as sports editor of the Cleveland (Tenn.) Daily Banner. Kennedy’s human ...
Twittter is boring.
Or login with:
New Account