I’m wondering if my love affair with Twitter is starting to wind down.
I’ve been at it for well over a year now, basically addicted and loving every minute. Learning stuff. Meeting People. Promoting my blog. I’ve gone from thinking Twitter was a stupid waste of time to seeing it as a tool that has fundamentally changed the way people–and companies–communicate. Ironically, my original thoughts about Twitter were that it was the equivalent of trash art. It makes me laugh to read that post now, given the passion I eventually developed for Twitter and, especially, given the fact that it’s now an actual part of my job description at work.
The funny thing is that I’ve now come full-circle: I totally see the value of Twitter as a tool and marvel at the ways it’s changing business communication. Customer service, fundraising, news, marketing…I could go on all day. The most interesting Twitter thing I’ve come across recently is this–using twitter to help manage the treatment of autism? Wow.
The thing is, though, while Twitter has become more and more “serious” (e.g. not just trash art), it’s also become just plain lonely. I don’t know if it’s because people have gotten busier and started taking Twitter more seriously or what, but recently I’ve definitely noticed a drop in the interactive value of Twitter, at least as far as I’m personally concerned. Could be because most of the people I follow on Twitter are social media people, and therefore each have thousands of followers and in turn follow thousands back. I “only” follow 159 people and I can barely keep up. Considering that most of the people who follow me also follow thousands of other people I am a tiny gnat on their collective windshield.
Bottom line: to me, Twitter is starting to become information overload and interaction underload.
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