Rewind back a few years to the time when Hi5 and Orkut were the giants of social networking. Facebook (fb) was exclusive and that exclusivity led to a sudden surge of activity that re-shaped common perspective on online networking. Remember how most of your friends were hesitant to join 'another' site and some even swore off using fb. That was then. Asking someone today if they're on fb is a redundant question. Everyone uses it. Or rather, fb uses most people.
Over the years, I've noticed people going off fb for short periods of time, only to return in a few months. The smart people at fb anticipated the psychological disadvantage of social (online networking) isolation and programmed fb in such a way that information would be retained if the individual wished to return at a later date. In most cases, they did return.
Present day: Twitter. I associate that word with the early morning chirp of a bird. It signals the advent of something fresh, a new day - sunshine and a whole day of opportunity. Imagine if that bird twittered within ear shot all day long. As often as it liked.
The current rage in social networking is Twitter* - a site that lets you enter a feed of 140 characters, a brief update on what you're doing.
Get this - 50 Cent has a Twitter P.A. For some, it's hard work entering 140 characters.
I guess, in a way - this blog is a gloriously magnified tweet. Although, I'd like to think of it more as a roar of my thoughts. If I blogged a few sentences every hour, updating my current list of activities/thoughts/plans - I'd feel sorry for anyone reading it. And I'd have to feel silly for wasting all that time.
Someday soon, maybe we'll all be Twittering incessantly. Maybe.
The smart ones will learn to use it to their advantage. Because, eventually, 'online social-networking isolation pressure' gets to even the most stoic.
*"Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers)."
