Twitter

he only people to be found on Twitter are those obsessed by celebrity — often this means celebrities themselves. Ever tried stalking Mallika Sherawat? You can’t, because her constant twittering will stalk you instead!

“Twitter is lame and kind of useless. It’s not exactly competition to Facebook, and that is where I would rather be. With Twitter, all you get to see is updates about what every person is doing every microsecond and though it might feel like fun to begin with, eventually you care less and less. How many people actually care if Demi Moore is gonna eat dinner now?” feels homemaker Payel Kathuria Aripirala.

Nonsense, they say: Does it really matter if his shoelaces are purple or if she lost her false eyelashes? “Twitter is literally the most awful thing. It’s mind-numbingly boring to hear about people’s adventures at the gas station. I couldn’t care less,” says Emily Blunt. It has its fair share of intellectual snobbery, too.

No wonder people are tiring of Twitter. Look at Oprah Winfrey. On April 17, 2009, Oprah joined Twitter and tweeted six times that day. On April 30, she sent out only four tweets. In February 2010, the frequency had dropped to five tweets in the whole month.

Cluttered: A small tweak to the buttons, a slight variation in look and feel can go a long way in influencing user behaviour. Just look at how Google’s Buzz is facing flak for default ‘public’ status of updates.

“While the 140-character constraint enables creativity, easy retweeting allows people you follow to forward messages left, right and centre, thereby making your timeline a cluttered and disengaging platform,” feels Romit Choudhury, HR manager at Procter & Gamble. Of course, you can always choose to unfollow someone. “But avaricious as we humans are, we don’t want to miss out on anything!” he smiles.

You’re likely to ‘follow’, not lead: It can be bad for the ego if you are following far more people than are following you.


Real: Too much reality can be a real yawn. Just look at reality TV (though we doubt there is really anything real about that). “Twitter bursts the bubble of imagination. We have always been in awe of celebrities because we don’t know what they are really like. Twitter has changed that. I used to follow Priyanka Chopra but even that is kind of dull now. Twitter is dull, talking about it is duller,” says Rahul Bose, 26.


Time-consuming: Twitter fans need to be constantly connected. “Seriously, I am way too busy in life to even follow the closest of my friends every five minutes,” points out Payel. And it isn’t just Twitter itself — it is all that additional information it brings. Addicts claim that links to sites shared by tweeters can just keep you going on and on and on, from one webpage to the next.

Public: Social networking is public, no matter what anyone says.

So very blue: A blue bird as a logo? Cute to start out with; now it’s so last year.

Too short and tweet: Micro-blogging is not everyone’s style. For the more verbose amongst us, cutting short the long of it to a mere 14 characters can be a BIG problem.

TWITTER IS BRILLIANT BECAUSE IT’S...
AYE TO TWITTER: (From top) Preity Zinta, Shah Rukh Khan, Bill Gates, Demi Moore and Priyanka Chopra

Short: We love it because it’s so short. No more rambling blog posts. No more irritating status messages. No more emailing or pinging to share a brilliant one-liner. Brevity, they say, is the soul of wit. Which is why Twitter isn’t for twits.

Fast: “It’s instantaneous. Sort of like an SMS. I read or share what I want with a lot of people in seconds,” says software professional Sunny Purkayastha, 25. Noodles or coffee, there are always takers for all things instant.

Informative: It has replaced news websites for many. “Twitter is my alternative news source since I am following BBC World and a couple of other news sources. I find on my homepage what I miss out on otherwise,” says Opashona Ghosh, 22, creative executive for an event management firm. That makes it a one-stop site for cricket scores, the latest on Burberry’s new collection, the Chile earthquake fallout. “You don’t have to subscribe to RSS feeds or go to Google anymore. You get everything on one comprehensive page, on every issue that you are interested in,” adds Sunny.

Good for brand value: Twitter helps celebrities, writers, producers or any public figure project a certain image. On Twitter you can keep people hooked with short updates about your new collection, your new blog post or your next film. “Along with Facebook, it helps to enhance my brand image,” feels designer Kallol Datta.

A source of gossip: And that too, on a global scale. What necklace did Deepika Padukone wear to the premiere of Karthik Calling Karthik? Did a celebrity actually repeat her Armani dress? Is she really seeing him?! Ohmygawd!

Connecting people: Twitter can bring you closer to those who you wouldn’t have access to at all. And if you’re lucky, they may even reply to you. “It’s like the virtual equivalent of a party, where someone you don’t know makes a wisecrack for everyone to hear and you can reply to that statement even if you don’t know him or her. Which is so nice because nothing makes your day like a good conversation,” says Shahana Dutt, 26, designer and stylist.

Private: Yes, if you are careful, you can tweet for select eyes only. “It’s quite non-invasive. You can protect your tweets. You can block people,” says Kallol.

Personal: With Twitter, the Internet is personal again. Even though the medium is electronic, the impulse-driven mode of communication has an intimate immediacy. “It’s fun. A lot my friends and I play strange games like tweeting only in alliterations,” smiles Kallol. Such games wouldn’t be quite the same on group chat, would they.


Not too short to matter: A lot of people can say a lot of things in 140 characters. And not just about where they’re getting their nails done.

- Inidinan Journalist.