The Trouble with Twitter
I am still trying to decide what I think of Twitter technology.
I am experimenting with using Twitter because I like the idea of a micro-blog. Since I am accustomed to using a napkin or post-it to write out my thoughts, Twitter seemed like a natural extension of my style of work. I thought I might use the micro-blog to jot down interesting quotes, aphorisms, as well as some cursory observations. (Of course, a real sticky-note has the advantage of letting me draw lots of arrows, symbols, and squiggles...)
But Twitter is not merely a space for jotting down micro-thoughts, it is also a technology that bridges cell phone SMS and desktop IM technology. In most cases, it seems to be used by chronically locquacious socialites to let their friends know what they're up to... a seemingly harmless preoccupation of a generation of kids that views e-mail as too cumbersome.
As with any new media technology, marketing firms, journalists and politicians are quickly finding Twitter useful for their own purposes. For example, Barack Obama, or at least one of his minions, uses Twitter to keep his followers updated on the campaign trail. That is not surprising or even interesting to me.
One troubling aspect of Twitter is the way in which it can be mashed with Google maps to create a rather odd technology of self-confessional surveillance. On a global scale, Twittervision, allows users to passively note the mundane public "tweets" of individuals in real time. Twittermap allows the reader to locate tweets down to the city block level. Of course, the tweets that are visible are only those which the individual willingly provides to the public domain and almost everything I have seen on Twitter is utterly banal. But it is precisely the banality that makes the technology seem so deceptively innocuous.
A rival of Twitter, Dodgeball markets the idea that if users provide their current location, the program will help locate their friends, or the friends of their friends, within a ten block radius. One can even use this software to track (i.e. stalk) "crushes" within a ten block area. I am not sure who would find the transition from Facebook/My Space type trolling to real-life stalking appealing. (No one ever seems to ask themselves whether a technology should be created simply because it is possible to create it).
The technology that is emerging is one that lends itself to social mapping. In this case, however, a network tree of friends and their friends and their friends emerges almost spontaneously from the pattern of communication. The ability to map these networks has existed for sometime in the hands of state officials, but it is now becomming possible to privatize this technology, link it geographically, and move it toward real time surveillance of confessions and persistent memory.
Is this a problem? Obviously, technology is reversible and what is useful for surveillance can also be used to deceive and overthrow the gazers. So I am not sure if this technology is a problem, but I think it is worth watching to see how it evolves...
I am experimenting with using Twitter because I like the idea of a micro-blog. Since I am accustomed to using a napkin or post-it to write out my thoughts, Twitter seemed like a natural extension of my style of work. I thought I might use the micro-blog to jot down interesting quotes, aphorisms, as well as some cursory observations. (Of course, a real sticky-note has the advantage of letting me draw lots of arrows, symbols, and squiggles...)
But Twitter is not merely a space for jotting down micro-thoughts, it is also a technology that bridges cell phone SMS and desktop IM technology. In most cases, it seems to be used by chronically locquacious socialites to let their friends know what they're up to... a seemingly harmless preoccupation of a generation of kids that views e-mail as too cumbersome.
As with any new media technology, marketing firms, journalists and politicians are quickly finding Twitter useful for their own purposes. For example, Barack Obama, or at least one of his minions, uses Twitter to keep his followers updated on the campaign trail. That is not surprising or even interesting to me.
One troubling aspect of Twitter is the way in which it can be mashed with Google maps to create a rather odd technology of self-confessional surveillance. On a global scale, Twittervision, allows users to passively note the mundane public "tweets" of individuals in real time. Twittermap allows the reader to locate tweets down to the city block level. Of course, the tweets that are visible are only those which the individual willingly provides to the public domain and almost everything I have seen on Twitter is utterly banal. But it is precisely the banality that makes the technology seem so deceptively innocuous.
A rival of Twitter, Dodgeball markets the idea that if users provide their current location, the program will help locate their friends, or the friends of their friends, within a ten block radius. One can even use this software to track (i.e. stalk) "crushes" within a ten block area. I am not sure who would find the transition from Facebook/My Space type trolling to real-life stalking appealing. (No one ever seems to ask themselves whether a technology should be created simply because it is possible to create it).
The technology that is emerging is one that lends itself to social mapping. In this case, however, a network tree of friends and their friends and their friends emerges almost spontaneously from the pattern of communication. The ability to map these networks has existed for sometime in the hands of state officials, but it is now becomming possible to privatize this technology, link it geographically, and move it toward real time surveillance of confessions and persistent memory.
Is this a problem? Obviously, technology is reversible and what is useful for surveillance can also be used to deceive and overthrow the gazers. So I am not sure if this technology is a problem, but I think it is worth watching to see how it evolves...
Labels: web technology
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