What Is This Thing Called Twitter?

I've had a Twitter account for seven or eight months and frankly I've hardly used it because I still don't get it. I'm told that until you've got x followers then no, you don't get it but in reality I have yet to see anything interesting on Twitter that stirs the vaguest interest in my jaded brain. Even Stephen Fry, who's blog I read avidly for its elegant use of language and ideas has failed to maintain my interest in Twitter for more than a couple of tweets and as for Jonathan Ross, well his many daily tweets are rapidly causing me to re-evaluate him. Twitter is, I believe, the digital equivalent of the Kings New Suit of Clothes and those that are twittering are desperately trying to justify the time investment by professing a relevance that just doesn't pertain. I'll persist for now but I'm waiting expectantly for some shining moment of revelation.

In The Vanguard of a New Trend

No sooner do I finish my last post about Twitter than I read this in the Guardian by Bobbie Johnson which crystallises very well my growing unease about this whole internet phenomenon of 'social networking'. The net is just so uncritically voracious. It inhales ephemera like it's life depended on it and perhaps it does. But does mine? Do I care what Ross or Brand think about anything. They certainly haven't earned my respect for their elegant use of the language unlike Stephen Fry whose jotting's are both well informed and erudite and leave me feeling enriched rather than debased. Do I care about the minutiae of the lives of virtual strangers in anything but the most superficial way. And if I do imbibe this tedious diet of pixellated pasta how do I avoid information constipation?

I suppose the answer is, in cybespace as in life itself (where ever that is these days), one needs to watch ones diet and not allow Ross/Brand type plaque accumulation to clog up the arteries. Eject it with a good Fry-up. Begin a new trend.

What's that then?

Blogonic irrigation.

I don't believe you wrote that.

I'll get my coat.

To Twitter or Not To Twitter?

I've been a moderate Twitter user since Twitter first poked its beak over the parapet but, to be frank, I just don't really get the whole Twitter thing. Shorts tweets of peoples mundane random thoughts are just annoying and why the inane ramblings of millions of vacant brains, mine included, should be clogging up bandwidth is anyones guess. Anyway, I'm luke warm on the idea from the get go but then I learn that the Ross/Brand axis is twittering away good-oh and the whole idea begins to look like the chattering classes are beginning to invade every space I once thought I was safe in. It's as though every vertical surface of every city on the planet has been fly-posted with the dreary banalities of even drearier celebs. There's no escape except to vacate the twittesphere forthwith. I've already been driven from Radio 2 by this desperate duo I need a good reason not to be exiled from Twitter and thankfully here it comes in the unexpected form of Stephen Fry who, it would seem, is a Twitter user of some stature if his followers figures are to be believed. 

I still don't get Twitter but I'll give it one more chance because of Mr Fry. 

Lucky Twitter.