Nkosi868

Hi guys, it's been a while since my last post. Sorry but I've been a bit busy and I also didn't have a topic to speak about. If you want to read my writings more often you could follow me on Twitter(@Nkosi868). I'm very active on there. And that's going to be my topic today.

Recently a lot of people have been asking me "What is Twitter?". My answers nearly always lead to "What's the point of tweeting?". And when I explain that, I get, "Why don't you just use Facebook status updates?" Yikes!

In my opinion, Facebook status messages are geared towards close friends and family, just like Facebook itself, and Twitter is open to everyone to network as they like. It's more of a public forum where you can meet people with similar interests. Facebook on the other hand, I use as a Rolodex and Instant Messenger.

Yesterday, one of my former classmates on Facebook asked me what "RT" was, since she has been seeing it in my status updates a lot. When I told her that my Twitter and Facebook accounts were linked to update simultaneously, another friend of mines exclaimed, "Are you serious?" as though it was bit overkill to link the two. Someone else told me that I should keep them separate. I'm not sure why. They both do the same thing and whatever I say on Twitter is good enough for Facebook and vice-versa. Well that's unless I start talking about you know who, who did you know what, with you know who. You know what? Let's keep that on Macobook Facebook.

A few minutes ago I replied to a comment concerning Twitter in a Facebook group discussion board started by Maria(@PiscesInPurple). She's compiling a list of Twitter users from the Caribbean on her blog, so she decided to post a message in a Caribbean themed group that is administrated by, a guy named Keith, who I assume is another Twitter user I follow(@keith_in_tnt). Anyways, there was one reply to her fairly new discussion board post when I got there.

This is what it said:

"It's a list I wouldn't want to be on - no offense. I simply think that what people have to say is worth more than a few strangled sentences."

This was my reply:

This is exactly one of the things that I hate to hear people say when they don't know much about Twitter. Your comment leads me to believe that you believe people that use Twitter don't have "regular" conversations.

Twitter was originally designed with text messaging in mind. A text message consists of 160 characters. Twitter reserves 20 of those characters for your name. Have you ever sent a text message before? That is essentially what you're doing when you use Twitter.

The service gives you an opportunity in a fast paced world, to connect with people who share common interests. It wasn't meant to replace any other form of "proper" communication. If you meet someone on Twitter and you want to get to know them better, you can exchange information such as an email and have "normal" conversations there.

Do you think your comment was "strangled"?

"It's a list I wouldn't want to be on - no offense. I simply think that what people have to say is worth more than a few strangled sentences."

Guess what? According to your logic, it was. It's exactly 140 characters long. The maximum amount of characters you can use in a Twitter status update.

Yes I know, I talk a lot. Trust me, I've tried to control my tongue. It's not possible. Seriously though, I hate when I have to deal with comments such as this about Twitter. I can't remember being so naive about the service before I started using it regularly. Maybe that has something to do with me listening to technology podcasts and always hearing them mention "Twitter". This was way before the Hollywood invasion began. It was a total Geekfest back then.

Anyways, before I roll on too long, let me wrap this up. The moral of this blog is that some people are technologically challenged and you have to do your best to help them or else they'll be left for dead in No Man's Land(a.k.a Fail Whale Land). Sorry, but we can't save them all. The revolution is coming!!!

That's not really the moral of the blog, but that sounds epic enough. Thanks for reading. :D