I think I am showing the first signs of an infection! :-) Ok, I have known about twitter since probably early 2007. My reaction then was: interesting - combining blogging techniques with instant meant messaging and SMS. And all that public, feeding into common stream of so called tweets, the cumulation of all individual twitter posts. Privacy is an option, a bit like an afterthought. And your account is either private or public, not public combined with some private tweets. It's either - or. Sounds terrifying for non-twitterers, but that brutal simplicity makes twitter so scalable, so versatile and so attractive. More on that another time.
Back then I couldn't see how microblogging would fit into my world and I followed the rise in popularity mainly as an observer. I was a bit more interested in Jaiku since they seemed more into the mobile world, scandinavian, nokiaish and then being bought by Google. Pownce seemed to me like another web communication service.
And then this year I read about a twittermob which happened at a conference during a high profile podium interview. What fascinated me wasn't the why, nor the who or the what. It was the phenomon of the occurence of the mob, which was like a swarm and in retrospect a total overreaction. It was group dynamics at it's best, or worst. Many "mobbers" apoligised publicly afterwards and said that they were taken away.
That triggered memories of communication technologies when they reached the mainstream. Mainly email and the mobile phone, to a lesser extend discussion forums and boards. Remember when we were learning how to use email in the 90s? The angry email exchanges which often started as a small misunderstanding and then snowballed into an avalanche of CCs and BCCs until the whole world knew about it. The first thing as a directory admin was to delete the ALL mail forward. Then we have learned quickly how to communicate with these new techniques, what words to use. If an email triggers an emotional reaction, best wait till tomorrow before fireing off a response which one might regret later. Same in forums and blogs. And we have learned to live with spammers and flamers, they are part of the ecosystem.
The twitter mob occurence told me that this kind of communication is going mainstream and I better should get into microblogging now.
Back then I couldn't see how microblogging would fit into my world and I followed the rise in popularity mainly as an observer. I was a bit more interested in Jaiku since they seemed more into the mobile world, scandinavian, nokiaish and then being bought by Google. Pownce seemed to me like another web communication service.
And then this year I read about a twittermob which happened at a conference during a high profile podium interview. What fascinated me wasn't the why, nor the who or the what. It was the phenomon of the occurence of the mob, which was like a swarm and in retrospect a total overreaction. It was group dynamics at it's best, or worst. Many "mobbers" apoligised publicly afterwards and said that they were taken away.
That triggered memories of communication technologies when they reached the mainstream. Mainly email and the mobile phone, to a lesser extend discussion forums and boards. Remember when we were learning how to use email in the 90s? The angry email exchanges which often started as a small misunderstanding and then snowballed into an avalanche of CCs and BCCs until the whole world knew about it. The first thing as a directory admin was to delete the ALL mail forward. Then we have learned quickly how to communicate with these new techniques, what words to use. If an email triggers an emotional reaction, best wait till tomorrow before fireing off a response which one might regret later. Same in forums and blogs. And we have learned to live with spammers and flamers, they are part of the ecosystem.
The twitter mob occurence told me that this kind of communication is going mainstream and I better should get into microblogging now.
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