A fairly comprehensive list of what Twitter is from “A MSc research on the one thing Twitter asks; what are you doing?”
Twitter is more a network than an application. If you ask around you will notice that most people are using different interfaces on different platforms and clients. Because of the API connecting to the network adapts to your preferred way of working.
- Is easy accessible
- Is live
- Forces you to focus
- Is broken conversation
- Is open conversation
- Is spam free, like RSS (subscription based)
- Is a network
- Is synchronous / asynchronous
- Is a black hole
- Is a time capsule
- Is a centralized network
- Changes public / privacy
- Is a knowledge base
- Is very unstable
- Is making it very difficult for search engines
- Is platform independent
…And some recent Twitter apps and news I’ve bookmarked:
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Qwitter helps track how much you smoke in order to help you quit
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Commuter Feed puts traffic reporting in the hands of the people
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Twitter Karma lets you know which of your Twitter connections are mutual
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Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular (New York Times): “Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels.” This is a Twitter app waiting to happen, there are already sites in .jp that help capture cellphone novels.
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Tweetgift lets you send virtual gifts to friends over Twitter
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plusplus bot lets you rate things quickly over Twitter
I have exactly three Twitter apps on my todo list, but one I would love to have now and not have to figure out the vagaries of: Stayawayfromme allows you to be alerted whenever someone you do not want to run into reports that they are at a particular location. There are more social problems with this app, however–primarily, it requires mutual agreement on the exclusion and could be subverted with no effort (i.e. it could also be “Stalkme”). For now, I’m “tracking” a couple key location names, but I’m not sure if I’ll receive the updates if I have the person blocked as well. Ah, the complications of technologically-enhanced social graphs!
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