Twitter...may be not like all the rest

At first I didnt think that Twitter was anything new. I mean the FB status updates do virtually the same things as Tweets. One of the biggest criticism of sites like Facebook and Myspace is that they are one of the most obvious indicators that today's youth are overly self-indulgent and Twitter is no different. I mean honestly who cares about "what's happening," with you at any random moment of the day or what the 411 is every time your mood status just happens to change. Lots of cultural analysts have written about the whole, "everybody wants to be a hyper local celebrity" phenomenon but Twitter is bigger than that I think. Sure, on the surface it indulges the current trend of of Facebook, Myspace and Youtube, which allows people to "broadcast themselves" in a way that doesn't make them seem completely insecure and shallow.

But I think the Osterman Blog has a point, Twitter is about the followers as well as the followed. It is not AS one sided and self-indulgent as Fb, which really doesn't have a way of telling its profilers how many views they receive daily or what their followers to followed ratio is, because that was never the point of FB. ITS ALL ABOUT YOU. I think it is fair to say that Twitter's low retention rate is in part due to the intimidation users' first feel looking at their f:f ratio. Nobody wants to have to work for popularity, acceptance or fame. I mean if you cant even be a celebrity of your on Twitter world than what the hell is the point.