Mar 11, 2007
Loosely connected
I have explored twitter a lot more since my last post here on dltq.org, and I have also read a few other articles / blog entries on it. Here are a few:
Ross Mayfield: Twitter Tips the Tuna
Isabella Mori: More on online conversations
Andy Carvin: Can Twitter save lives?
Chris Brogan: 5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good
As you can read in the above blog entries, there are different ways in which twitter isused, and there are different visions as to how it Could be used. Here is one example of an exchange I had today:
sbraiden Reading the latest issue of “Develoments” & want to share. Brilliant, free 1/4ly magazine. Grab it: http://www.developments.org… about 2 hours ago from web 
dltq @sbraiden: thanks for the link! – any specific articles you liked? i wonder how articles in publciations like this are further discussed about 2 hours ago from web in reply to sbraiden 
sbraiden @dltq article called “the road to jubilee” on Bono’s use of the currency of celebrity to influence social/political change/debt cancellation 4 minutes ago from web in reply to dltq
This might seem like just another IM conversation, but it wasn’t. These messages are stored online, becoming parts of sbraiden and my identity on twitter, and we can both look back at them later on. Others could read the messages, become clued in to the conversation or join it.
I like the connections that are loosely connected. Where there are so many open ends that the geist can float throughout the network. Something someone said in a twitter a few weeks ago, maybe, could be the basis for a discussion at a later stage. And because you can link their twitters, their text messages to the system on their way to somewhere, when One Thought comes to their mind and they share it, with the person with their websites, blogs, identities – - because you can do this, you can have different layers of communication that together can become very fullfilling.
Even if I cannot sustain spending the time listening to your 45 minute podcasts every week, or read your 600 word blog entries, I can be connected to you via your text messages – 140 characters long – that are broadcasted to the system. If you take a look at some of my favourites, you will see the style of messages that I collect.
Loosely connected.
Where will the red thread enter the picture? How will we go from eternal fixation on the newest twitter messages on the system to a more focused, concentrated effort to deal with specific problems?
thanks for your thoughtfulness. i particularly like your last question: when can we become more focused?
of course, when asking this question there is a bit of an implied assumption that being more focused is a good thing and i’m not 100% certain that that’s the right question to ask for something like twitter. but let’s suppose it is.
the focus that i would be interested in would be to more quickly identify like-minded people in order to make things happen. it’s one thing to put together one of those thoughtful 600-word blog entries that a lot of people feel they don’t have the time to read; and it’s another to fire off a quick burst.
to sign a petition. to help someone who’s encountered a catastrophe. to cheer someone whose accomplishments have fallen between the cracks. to ….?
btw, chris heuer’s post on twitter is well-thought-out, too: