One-Tweet Wonders

theodp writes "TIME has seen-the-future-and-it-is-Twitter. Slate, on the other hand, is more fascinated with the phenomenon of orphaned tweets, the messages left by people who sign up for Twitter, post once, then never return (not unlike one-blog-post wonders). While some orphan tweets betray skepticism about microblogging ('I don't get it... what's the point of this thing?'), other one-and-done Twitterers demonstrate keen enthusiasm before disappearing ('I'm here!'), and some tweets hint that tragedy has cut a promising Twittering-life short ('it hurts to breathe. should I go to the hospital?'). Slate notes that studies of Twitter accounts by Harvard and Nielsen suggest the service has been better at signing up users than keeping them, including the one-tweet wonders."

If you don't read TFA

[jeffmeden]

This says about all there is to say about Twitter:

In at least one instance, two orphan tweets appear to have been in conversation.

marcbresseel getting ready for cannes - printing latest briefing - I hate folding my shirts
8:36 AM Jun 14th, 2008

Kolcott @Marcbresseel You fold your shirts?
9:13 AM Jul 10th, 2008

A lone call followed by a lone response; a social network of two.

The best and worst of this new media, done and done. We can all move along now.

That is the end of Twitter

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Once it makes to the cover of Time, it is a sure sign it has peaked. If you see the bull (or bear) dressed in a suit on the cover of Time or Newsweek that will be a 3 year high (or low) and if both mags have the bull (or bear) in the same week, it will be a five year high (or low).

It is much like that apocryphal story about a shoeshine boy (or a taxi driver) telling JFK's Dad (Patrick Kennedy?) to get into the stock market and JKF's dad figuring, if these guys are in, it is time to get out.

the reason

[ilblissli]

the reason these people sign up in the first place is to follow tweets of others. be it someone famous and worthless like ashton kutcher, or to follow news tweets like cnn.com regardless, you can't subscribe to someone's tweet stream unless you have signed up. people probably sign up for that reason, post once just because they feel that urge to push the shiny red button. then they just dip back into the shadows to lurk and watch other people's lives unfold.

Either you are, or you aren't

[Tyr_7BE]

I tried blogging, that fizzled out the night I started. I tried microblogging using facebook and twitter, that petered out after a month or so. I can only assume that once we have nanoblogging [toothpastefordinner.com], I won't be into that either. Some people need a forum to sound off to the world. Others, like me, are indifferent.

One Reason for the Hate: Marketing Bozos

[RobotRunAmok]

I'm finding a lot of resentment towards Twitter within my professional circle because of the notion, floated by the Marketing Suits, that one "simply must Twitter." A lot of these folks -- Olde Skool writers, comedians, entertainers -- feel they missed the boat when the MySpace wave hit, and don't want to make the mistake again. So they hold their noses and jump into every new social networking trend that the trendoids say they should be jumping into. Some days it's kind of like watching a platoon of Marines dressing in lemon chiffon gowns and working the room at a gay bachelor party because their intel has told them Al Quaeda just might be jumping out of the cake later, on other days it's like listening to the Pink Floyd disco album that was released in the late 70s/early 80s. Happily, I'm easily amused.

Re:useless

[Virak]

I'd never sully the good name of exhibitionism in such a manner.

Twitter's not completely useless

[XxtraLarGe]

I recently discovered a very cool use for Twitter. I was at a state team wrestling meet, and there wasn't any live coverage of the event, but there was WiFi. So I fired up my iPod Touch and started tweeting match results & team scores. They started using my tweets to update a statewide wrestling site. It was actually quite a neat experience, I had followers from all over the state who were interested in finding out the results.

Re:I use twitter daily, but never tweet.

[mbenzi]

This is exactly the use case that the critics still don't understand. There are dozens (hundreds?) of ways to use Twitter that don't involve tweeting. @cnn @AJEnglish @woot @wxseattle @HouseFloor , etc.

People read websites all the time w/o posting comments, no one says those people have abandoned the web. Just because Twitter allows for two-way conversions doesn't mean that is how you have to use it.