I’m starting to get that feeling in my gut, the same one that I had in late 2007 when I knew that MySpace had crossed the line of no return in its war against Facebook. But this time, it’s Facebook’s turn to be bested. It’s not because of the multiple site revamps where with each one the design of Facebook seems to get worse and more confusing, it’s not just because Twitter seems to be all the rage right now (sites can lose that momentum, here’s looking at you Friendster), and it’s not because of Facebook users unhealthy obsession with Farmville.
The reason why I think Twitter is about to truly blow its competition out of the water is because Twitter does one thing better than any other site on the internet: reinvents how we communicate. While many just use their tweets to convey news and priority information, the new trend with Twitter seems to be friendly conversation with strangers, much akin to the old days of forums and message boards and dare I even say chat rooms. Twitter has become an easy way for you to reach out to a complete stranger, and it seems like these days it’s more and more likely you’ll get a reply. Most of the conversation on Twitter is always in a polite and friendly tone, you just don’t get the flame wars and trolls that the much despised chat room can bring. Twitter encapsulates the most basic form of human contact and communication, and reinvents it into something a bit more intuititve for the digital age.
Whether you’re talking to a celebrity, friend, or somebody you have never met, Twitter has created a new way for us to share ideas, news, information, jokes, and just about anything else thats on our minds. Facebook meanwhile in contrast feels very sterile, cold, and isolating. On FB, there’s a litany of privacy settings for each profile blocking any meaningful conversation with someone you’ve never met before. Let’s face it.. don’t you just feel a tad bit creepy sending someone an unsolicited message or friend request on Facebook even if you’re interested in getting to know more about them?
But on Twitter, unsolicited messages are not only welcome but quickly becoming anticipated and expected. We feel a sense of pride when someone chooses to follow us, retweet us, or reply to something we’ve said. Twitter has opened the flood gate for an actual conversation to take place on the internet, theres no fees, theres no bad music/flashing layouts, and most importantly of all there’s not a feeling of bothering someone or being put off when we reach out to them. This community is also still growing day by day, I feel that we haven’t seen 1/4th of the potential that Twitter can bring.
I see Twitter as almost the next evolution of e-mail. You can reach out to anybody that has an account, they still have the choice to reply to what you send, and 140 characters is just right for breaking the ice or getting a quick point across. Tweets are a faster, quicker, and shorter way of contacting someone and when enough people get on your social network will really start booming, giving you far more “friends” and contacts than myspace/facebook could combined.
One of the tell tale signs of a site really hitting its mainstream stride, is when your friends who are anti-social media or technology start to sign up for it. Slowly but surely I’m seeing everyone from the “jocks” to the “geeks” getting on to Twitter, and surprisingly enough.. they’re communicating with each other. I think Twitter has done an amazing job of bringing down this impetus shield of contact that we put up as human beings. We’re all social creatures at heart and out of all of the platforms out there, it seems like Twitter gives us the most ability for our voices to be heard.
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