I'm officially dropping out of the Twitter gab fest
Back from vacation and it's grand to see that the blabosphere's obsession du jour with all things Twitter remains as rabid as ever. For a while, at least, I suppose it elbows aside the other obsession du jour--the truly distressing state of newspaperdom--at least until word of the inevitable next bankruptcy hits the wire.
But with all due respect to the armchair commentariat, I'm sure there's something more interesting to write about in the wider world of technology. You wouldn't get that impression after randomly scanning headlines on the tech news aggregation sites. That's where the usual suspects are again cluttering up the transom with their latest random brain farts about what Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone ought to do with their amazing little toy.
And I'm not letting us off the hook, either. At one point on Friday, CNET had five--count 'em, five--posts on Twitter (and unfortunately, I'm No. 6).
I can understand why certain folks might be drawn to Twitter--even to the point of pondering the existential import of Oprah's tweets, but come on already. Twitter's a terrific conversational and research tool. Still, can we get a grip?
I'm so thoroughly bored by the mandatory wide-eyed wonder that now accompanies any news event where the story is that people actually post updates on Twitter. "Wow, they're tweeting about the earthquake;" "they're tweeting about the airplane in the East River;" "they're tweeting about the bunion on the president's left toe." Blah, blah, blah.
Despite the outpouring of attention, not everyone is so enamored. I was recently at a dinner hosted by venture capitalist Bill Gurley, whose company, Benchmark Capital, is an investor in Twitter. The person sitting next to me that evening was only a few weeks into her Twitterhood. She didn't get what all the fuss was about. I did my best to convince her that Twitter was a game-changer but she wasn't buying.
Maybe in time her opinion will change, but her lukewarm response offered a reminder. A lot of serious, smart people take a more sober view of Twitter, viewing it as one (possibly useful) technology tool among others in their daily routine. They're not close to drinking the Kool-Aid, and that's something the media forgets.
Well, if Ev & Biz ever do figure out how to harness Twitter's financial potential, wonderful, that would rate as news, and at that point, I'll give a damn. Until then, I'm leaving the daily hand-wringing to others.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
i did th same search and found that ONE "tweet" said that, it was from FIVE DAYS AGO and not even about the same C. Cooper....it seem like you are now doing a much research as Don Reisinger.
Why So Serious?
While there are some true values to the social networking phenomena, the majority of it (like twitter) is simply a symptom of mentality of the Look at Me generation.
Fortunately, they also have the attention span of a hummingbird, so hopefully we will be on to more useful technology shortly.
writing about how you won't talk about twitter is just as tacky as talking about twitter.
I am concerned, Mr. Cooper should not stop gabbing about Twitter. It would be similar to saying I am not going to gab about Google because they are only a search engine, when they were in their first couple of years. And maybe he did, who knows?
I have to say this, write about what is important and relevant. Relevant companies like Twitter are important. Sitting by a person and writing about a discussion you had with her isn't.
I thought I was going slowly mad, watching world+dog get a never-ending series of geekgasms over Twitter. Screw Twitter. I got better ways of occupying my time when I spare it.
How exactly do you define relevant and useful? I'm with Cooper on this one....nothing to see here, move along. Twitter is a huge waste of time and it wont ever make a dime.
I'm all for one less writer blabbing about Twitter...
Does this mean Ashton Kutcher is mentally challenged? NO! It means YOU are if you follow him.
In other words, it's for the segment of society with the lowest IQ and the lowest sense of self-esteem. There's probably some money ito be milked from that group, I guess....
Now do a Google News search on "9/11 OR September 11."
- by bwrobertson2 April 18, 2009 7:21 AM PDT
- It's happening...
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