Tweet This!
Facebook and Myspace remind of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980′s. They were great, not the greatest, but great. They have mass followings and for ridiculous reasons they have loyal fans. Twitter on the other hand is the Michael Jordan of internet socializing. It is so powerful, that it doesn’t change America, it changes the world. This is obvious by the recent protests in Iran, protests that are being sparked by tweets sent by the opposition. This is the official rise of Twitter over Facebook and Myspace.
When I was a freshman in college in 2004, Facebook and Myspace were the hippest, coolest thing around. It was as if the internet expanded from email or instant messaging, porn, and illegally downloaded music to freely expressing yourself to all your good (and not so good) friends. On Facebook, I could put up a cool photo of me or create a funny “about me” and have everyone laughing. On Myspace, I could show everyone my favorite music or artists and have a hip wallpaper background. Instead of hiding away looking at porn or downloading the next great album of the year, I was checking facebook and checking and checking and checking.
Facebook kept evolving, but not because it was necessarily forced to evolve, but because Mark Zuckerberg realized that cash can be made from the site. Twitters rapid growth from small and oft-ignored site in 2006 to a huge and highly important virtual gathering place in 2008 forced Facebook to change, to evolve, to become essentially aTwitter wannabe. Twitter had it all, the cool wallpapers, the hip micro-blogs, and the movie stars. The Twitter rise has forced Facebook to become…Twitterbook.
What has really brought Twitter to the forefront is the recent protests in Tehran, Iran. Demonstrators are using Twitter to communicate and the US State Department had asked Twitter to delay routine maintenance just so they could see what was happening inside Iran and so the demonstrators could continue to communicate effectively. It is as if it is proving the old adage that the “revolution won’t be televised”wrong, because the revolution will be “tweeted”.
Twitter is also the new social gathering place for the Republican Party. Newt and the Gang have been “tweeting” there displeasure since the Presidents speech before Congress. This has helped them communicate to the younger faction of the Republican Party and helped them look relatively “hip”. I think this is what Michael Steele was talking about when he mentioned his plans for making the Republican Party more “Hip-Hop”. Honestly, “tweeting” is not a bad plan, but the GOP must be careful those “tweets” could come back to haunt them.
Twitters rise is a little more surprising than I imagined, it has shockingly reduced our already little attention spans even more and proved that with the internet there will always be a boom somewhere. It is playing a role in changing Iran (These demonstrations HAVE changed Iran already), changing a political party, and changing social interaction. This is either a fad or an era defining communication tool and whatever it is, it is important right now.
-The Graduate
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