Twitter? Yet another social network?

Time is everything these days.

I have a full time career that keeps me very busy, two children to raise the best that I can, any number of interesting writing, music, and web development side projects unfolding around me, and an ever evolving desire to journey along a spiritual path.

In my life, quiet time is highly valued. If anything, I seek ways to tune out the noise of life. This includes keeping TV to a minimum. My musical choices are intentional. What we consume with our eyes and our ears is every bit as important as what we consume with our mouths, if not more so.

So when I heard about twitter, I recall responding with the all too familiar “YASN” sigh… yet another social network? Really? Why?

I had visited the site several times, but just didn’t “get it”.

What can twitter do that Facebook, MySpace, and all the myriad of others cannot do? And with the “time is everything” mindset fully engaged, I did not spend a lot of time trying to figure this out.

This response didn’t keep twitter at bay. In fact, a steady stream of news and twitter related information kept coming my way.

How I got hooked – in less than 24 hours

This brings us to this past week. I got together for lunch and conversation with my friend Frank. I had heard that he was active with twitter, and so again – I asked the question – why twitter?

His response was something to the effect of this: Imagine it as a global chat – with all of this real time conversation flowing back and forth… and at any time you can query that data and hear what’s being talked about.

Ahhhh… the dimmer switch in the ol’ noggin was being turned up.

It was especially interesting timing, because I have been giving some great consideration lately to an idea for software that takes a leap well beyond RSS, and goes to the other side of the people and link pointers – software that can be trained to “think” and to value what you value. The end result would be information sets that would streamline any number of types of projects you might be engaged in.

Yes. I agreed at lunch that I would sign up at twitter and see what all the hubbub is about.

I went home, signed up, set up my profile, tweaked the settings a bit, found my friend Frank, and clicked follow.

There, I can check that off of my list. I have signed up for YASN. Yawn.

Or so I thought.

The Imogen Heap catalyst

Well, to be fair, first came the David Alston factor.

The first person that I did not know personally to “follow” me on Twitter was David Alston. Who is David, I thought?

Well, that’s an easy question to answer… clicking to his profile, and then to his site, I see he is “VP Marketing at Radian6, a software firm providing a social media monitoring solution for advertising and PR professionals”. Cool! That seems extremely related to some of the ideas I have been mulling around anyways.

From what I can tell, it seems to be some sort of twitter etiquette to follow your followers… so why not?

David seems to be following over 5,000 people… although it may not be the warmest of relationships [smile], it certainly doesn’t hurt to see what a guy like this is thinking about from time to time. At least in this case, this instinct has turned out to be more than true.

Then I stumbled across a posting about musicians that are on twitter, and saw Imogen Heap’s name there. This is an artist I have very much appreciated, but don’t know much about, so with another “why not”, I clicked her profile link and the follow button, and didn’t give it much more thought than that.

In all honesty, being a somewhat skeptical Internet traveler, I expected it to be a profile managed by someone other than Imogen Heap herself, and guessed I would get email alerts when new music was for sale and that sort of thing.

I was wrong.

The first night, Imogen’s twitters came streaming by, shedding a unique light on this artist… which for me was greatly appreciated. Via twitter, I could get a sense of her work and her passion for her music, in real time.

But the real catalyst for me… the real “ah-ha” moment was when it really sunk in that I was witnessing not only her comments about her own work and recording sessions, but I was also seeing her conversation with friends and fans, or in twitter speak, “followers”.

Sure, I am one of thousands of followers, and it’s all out there for the world to see. But somehow, either through the magic of twitter itself, or by virtue of the fact that I am just so new to this – I feel like part of the conversation. Even if I don’t have anything to contribute in the moment, it’s an interesting feeling to know that I *could* jump in if I so desired :)

Will I be ready to put down a few bucks for her next album the day it comes out? Can’t wait.

Why twitter is different

In a few short days, I have gone from a pretty solid YASN naysayer to someone that is pretty keen to see where this grand experiment will go, and happy to be part of the dialogue.

And if you ask why, my answer is simple – twitter is different.

It’s not about the technology, the API, the platform, the apps, or the competition. Sure – all of those things are interesting to me for professional reasons, but the real reason that twitter matters is because it’s all about the people using it. It’s about the way in which twitter connects conversations, and makes it all very accessible.

And if I were to stand even higher on my tip toes on my little soapbox — at the end of the day, that is what all technology should strive to do – to bring people together in new ways, and keep the dialogue going strong.

Twitter sells itself as a utility, and that’s what I like about it. Like any good utility, what you do with it is up to you.

Please note that I fully realize that this is all from a newcomer’s perspective, which is exactly the point. While I am not new to the web, by a long shot… twitter feels new to me.

Imagine if you could recall the first few emails you sent and received, and even better – if you were to have done that when email was a newcomer? Do you recall the first comment you received on a blog post?

Only time will tell if twitter really is a paradigm shifter in the same sense as email and blogging, or just another social networking experiment. Unfortunately, the real test will be mass adoption, and seeing if the plethora of apps and interfaces can help keep twitter usable and meaningful.

Either way, I plan to go along for the ride.

Special thanks

Special thanks to Frank, David Alston, and Imogen Heap… for helping me get the ball rolling with twitter. It is a lesson I am still learning in life that we often inspire one another when we least realize it.

Note to all of the great new folks I am getting to know on twitter since the first day or so, give me time… looking forward to learning more each day!

And speaking of inspiration, in case you missed it, His Holiness The Dalai Lama is now on twitter too, or so we thought :)

* The photo at the top of this post was snapped by yours truly when I was out in Los Angeles a few years back. I love seeing Elmo in the crowd striking up conversation at random, with Superman standing around in the foreground looking bored.