Generation Y’s latest treasure is Twitter. It is the crossover meeting point of social networking (facebook), blogging (wordpress), photo-sharing (picasa) and basic net presence (myspace). Twitter is the closest we have as yet to becoming one with your avatar – your net persona. Through Twitter other people can tell what you are doing at any given point in time. Its mandatory word limit of 150 words makes Twitter an extraordinarily concise method of communication.
You practically send out an SMS to the world. A message in a bottle. It could contain a snapshot. It could be an opinion. It could be a TinyURL (which is a condensed version of a full internet address). Whatever it is it takes less than a minute to fill and send a “Tweet” and add to the general buzz.
Among the significant terminology used for Tweeting (you guessed it.. it’s using Twitter) we find “followers”. Followers are persons who chose to follow your updates regularly. This is Warhol’s minutes of fame from a new perspective. As you build up a follower-ship you become “popular” in your own little world and before you know it over 500 people know that you were stuck in an elevator with four other people.
Twitter has even made it to breaking news. The Hudson River landing was first reported by a Twitterer who happened to be on one of the Hudson ferries.
It’s a little step forward (?) in the evolution of how we establish our presence on the net. For now it is a ragingly popular medium preferred by journalists, VIPs, wannabe VIPs and politicians (some categories might overlap). I’ve tried it. It’s awkward and hard to keep up to date. But don’t miss the Twitter from Generation Y.
