« Now That’s What I Call Church! (Or Not) | Home | A Windy Summer Day at Laity Lodge »
Is Twitter Making a Difference that Matters?
By Mark D. Roberts | Friday, June 19, 2009
You may have noticed that I am now including my tweets (Twitter posts) on this website. In the amazing world of computer automation, all I need to do is to create a tweet in my Twitter account, and it magically appears on my website.
I have been flirting with Twitter, but am still unconvinced of its value. I expect that Twitter will give birth to something else that is much more useful than what we have at the moment. To be frank, I don’t need to know what thousands of people had for breakfast. I don’t even need to know what my best friends had for breakfast, to be completely honest. I have been more positive about Twitter than Maureen Dowd, who wrote: “I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert, have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account.” But it seems that Twittering is mostly for people who have way too much time on their hands.
Until now. I’ve been watching with interest several news stories having to do with the role of Twitter in the political unrest in Iran. Many are claiming that Twitter is providing a unique platform for protesters in Iran to organize and communicate with themselves as well as the wider world. In what seems to be a legitimate news story (and not a clever satirical post from the Onion), the U.S. State Department has asked Twitter to delay some scheduled maintenance that would force the system to go down for a while.
For a sober discussion of how Twitter is impacting the situation in Iran, check out this story from the Washington Post. For a fascinating, but somewhat less balanced view, see this video from ITN:
What do you think? Is Twitter making a difference that matters?
Topics: Technology |
One Response to “Is Twitter Making a Difference that Matters?”
Comments
Thanks for your willingness to make a comment. Note: I do not moderate comments before they are posted, though they are automatically screened for profanities, spam, etc., and sometimes the screening program holds comments for moderation even though they're not offensive. I encourage open dialogue and serious disagreement, and am always willing to learn from my mistakes. I will not delete comments unless they are extraordinarily rude or irrelevant to the topic at hand. You do need to login in order to make a comment, because this cuts down on spam. You are free to use a nickname if you wish. Finally, I will eventually read all comments, but I don't have the time to respond to them on a consistent basis because I've got a few other demands on my time, like my "day job," my family, sleep, etc.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:50 am
It’s great that it’s of use in the Iran situation, and probably in other countries, too. I know a lot of people who use it regularly.
As for me, I’ll leave it to others to monitor the activity on Twitter. I’d rather Twitter, though, than have my eyes eaten out by ants!