Nick Curtis has written a poorly-researched piece in the Evening Standard that attempts to take a chunk out of Twitter, while asking if ‘Twitter is the new Facebook.’
Why poorly-researched? Well, he starts the piece saying that Tweets are 160 characters long – and as anyone who has ever looked at the sevice will know, they’re 140, the large ‘140’ beneath the input box being the clue. He then moves to tell us all how he didn’t really understand it.
The second part is understandable. I registered for Twitter when it first emerged and posted for the first time at 2:58 PM on 26th Oct 2006. Months between Tweets was pretty regular at the beginning, until I went to Beijing in June 2007.
Understanding Twitter takes time
The understanding of Twitter can take a considerable amount of time, as any new communications channel does.
New uses of Twitter are emerging of a daily basis, and it will continue to as more people become familiar with how it can be used.
Sadly Nick Curtis doesn’t employ humour in his piece, just loads of sneering. He’ll find out soon enough that he’s the one who will be missing out by ignoring Twitter, not vice versa.
It’s Twitter that led me to Nick’s article.
Perhaps facts like that will lead to a change of mind for him – or more likely the ES editors who are making the paper appear out of touch with what’s going on by publishing article like this.
I think it’s a bit embarrassing what they call ‘journalistic rigour’ these days..
There’s more insight in the comments than the article.
(& I wish it was the first time I’d seen that happen!)