Lately I've been wondering: what's the deal with Twitter? Being more of a Facebook girl myself I never had the desire to engage in yet another social networking website that would consume more of my valuable time and turn it into wasted minutes. Yet Twitter seems to continually be growing more popular, and it makes me wonder whether it may actually offer more to the world than just being another addicting webpage.
Recently I stumbled across this article that I found especially interesting about Twitter's popularity and purpose. According to Bilton, 8 percent of American internet users can be found on Twitter. Now in all actuality this is a rather small population, considering how much traffic the internet actually gets. The article also claims that of that 8 percent, 2 percent of Americans said they were extremely active and use the site every day.
The article also quoted the researchers of the study:
"[Twitter] is one of the most popular online activities among tech enthusiasts and has become a widely used tool among analysts to study the conversations and interests of users, buzz about news, products or services."
As one of the 92 percent of Americans who probably don't know very much about Twitter in the first place, I was surprised when the article implied that Twitter isn't necessarily used for entertainment and social connection as much as I had originally thought. Instead, it seems to be a huge global marketplace of news, advertising and even research.
This isn't to say that Twitter isn't used for fun as well. If it wasn't, I would venture to guess that the total American population using the site would be way less than 8 percent. But reading the article got me thinking that maybe I misjudged Twitter. Rather than another online social networking option, maybe its taken a different route and has become more of a free, global marketplace. So how is Twitter affecting world culture, and how is Twitter influencing how people receive and interpret information?
If you're interested in learning more about Twitter, I also found this article interesting: "Tracking the National Mood Through Twitter."
Oh dear. I just lost the 2 paragraphs I wrote in response to your post. Here I go again. As a Twitter user (only during this semester so far, due to my final project and interest in social networking websites), I can tell you that while I don't fit the 8% of Americans who Tweet, I do agree with researchers who view Twitter as a valuable networking tool between businesses. Sure Twitter is fun. It's instant, casual conversation. For celebrities, its a way to self-promote in a timely manner. For businesses it reaches a wider audience more quickly than Facebook, by instantly tweeting and updating its fans with news of products and services.
ReplyDeleteSo far, my Tweeting has consisted of retweeting my favorite celebrity tweets? Half of my Twitter friends are people/businesses I've never heard of, who "follow" me because they want to promote their goods and services to me, whether it be a restaurant in Chicago or a music company in New York. Both examples are Twitter users who followed me for the sole purpose of promoting themselves to me. It definitely annoys me that businesses see my new Twitter account and immediately see me as a pliable consumer, whom they want to bombard with tweets about themselves to. At least with Facebook, I have more control over what groups I belong to or friends I add.