The Full Circle of Twitter

by Ken on June 25, 2009

I enjoy Twitter quite a bunch. It works if one participates. Here is one guy’s experience:

  • He sits in his room – no one to talk to. Quiet . Alone with his thoughts.
  • He discovers Twitter.
  • He looks at it, but puts it off.
  • Later he looks again, and, for the heck of it, joins it.
  • There’s no one to read. He sits alone.
  • So he follows someone. Hey, someone to read.
  • He follows another. Another to read. Not much – but he sees everything written.
  • So he follows more and more. And gets more followers. Lots to read. And he reads most of them.
  • And he follows more. And more follow back. And now the trickle of the little tweets forms a stream. But he manages to see many. But certainly not all.
  • And he follows more. And more follow back. And the stream becomes a river. He is now seeing a smaller portion of the messages. But he occasionally sees one – or a few. “Wow that was nice.”
  • So he tweets and retweets.
  • And the river becomes a torrent. But he is seeing less and less. The mass of tweets becomes more than his two eyes can see.
  • So he gets Tweetdeck. It helps.
  • But he then gets multiple rivers – each becoming a torrent.
  • He now has 1000’s and 1000’s of followers.
  • The cacophony of begins to feel and look like the march of ants marching across a desert – near impossible to focus upon any one.
  • So, one day, he sits at the computer, and thinks of his innumerable  followers.
  • And he writes, “hi”.
  • He tweets this out to his throngs.
  • Tick – tock – tick – tock
  • No one responds.
  • More time…..
  • Did anyone hear?
  • The sun moves through the sky….
  • Nothing. The tweet stream moving along – the bits of data flowing by with no hint of recognition.
  • And then it hits him. He hasn’t read too many tweets lately, either  – though they flow in like the water from Niagara.
  • And, suddenly, he feels alone.
  • And thus he sits in his room – no one to talk to. Quiet.  Alone with his thoughts.

Hey – it’s just a story. 🙂

Ken Risley

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

michael sean wright June 25, 2009 at 1:18 pm

Clever insight. We are all trying to figure this out.

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