Qotw7: The magical question: what are you doing now??
I was feeling bored and that is when Lirong approached me on msn and asked me to join the twitter. My first reaction, like everyone else is” What is twitter?? Is it another friendster look-alike website again?” Well, I guess I was bored to tears and so decided to try it out (partly due to the assignment too). It turned out to be something different from the usual online communities that I have been to.
What is twitter?
According to the wikipedia, it is a social networking service which enables members in the community to inform each other what they are doing or simply just chat freely on what they are thinking. Not only that, it allows users to send messages through their mobile phones or instant messaging. Apparently, users are able to receive updates messages from their friends via web, IM or sms. Twitter is also an example of a micro-blogging platform as they are able to type down their thoughts in that instant moment. (Twitter, 2007)
my twitter
Twitter = online community?
I have to agree that twitter is definitely a part of the online community. As mentioned from the article virtual communites: abort, retry and failure, “community within cyberspace emphasizes a community of interests, usually bounded by the topic under discussion that can lead to a communal spirit and apparent social bonding”. Users in the virtual community are able to exchange ideas on issues, have virtual business conferences, to communicate with friends or strangers and even to just gossip. (Fernback.J & Thompson.B, May 1995)
Twitter creates a space for friends to just pen down their thoughts or just gossips about any issues that is happening in school or work. Friends can be easily added to your own sphere and view your short messages of ‘what are you doing now” that was left online. A community is thus formed as your own circle of friends is added to the same space. Just like what Mr. Kelvin Lim has done for our com125 class, he simply just wrote down the link in the com125 website and everyone in class started joining the twitter. A class online community is formed; students exchanged ideas on twitter itself or just plain complaining of how boring the long break in school is. Once a comment is made, everyone will automatically respond to it and therefore discussion online can be continued effortlessly.
Twitter somehow serves as any online forum where people are able to chat and exchanged pointers. Also, it is like an smaller version of blog where one can write down that they feel; few words is sometimes enough to portray what one is feeling in that moment.
Besides that, twitter kind of reminded me of MSN messenger. MSN allowed users to chat real time online and the newer version enable users to see some of the offline messages that were left behind. Messages in both MSN and twitter are mostly short and concise. They are also in conversational style and informal in nature. With this feature, this makes sharing of thoughts and ideas less restrictive and encourages users to communicate more freely.
Another added feature twitter has is the ability to add and view each others’ profiles easily. This feature is similar to another popular community—friendster. Through this online community, people are able to increase their social circle as friends of friends or even strangers may add you to their friends’ list. However, friendster restricts users from surfing profiles or adding people beyond four degrees which is friends of friends of friends of friends. (Boyd Danah, December 2006) Twitter does not restrict anyone from adding more friends. Anyone can be introduced or added to the online community.
Twitter not so good
Well, twitter may seem to be something innovative as it resembles the instant messenger and friendster; it is very user friendly. However, not all people may favor twitter. The reason is that most Singaporeans already had a blogger, friendster or MSN messenger account. They are already used to communicating via these online communities. Not only that, too many of these similar online communities are surfacing out. I guess majority of the people will felt indifferent to another new online community.
Conclusion
Though there are some similarities twitter has with other online communities such as friendster and there may be some disadvantages of twitter, it is definitely an online community that aids in linking different social networks together.
References
Fernback.J & Thompson.B (May 1995) Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? Retrieved on March 15, 2007, from
http://www.rheingold.com/texts/techpolitix/VCcivil.htmlTwitter (14 March 2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved on March 15, 2007 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwitterBoyd Danah (December 2006) . Friends, Friendsters, and Fop 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. First Monday, volume 11, number 12. Retrieved on March 15, 2007, from
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_12/boyd/index.html#p4 
