One thing I’ve noticed recently is that a lot of my normal non-techie friends have started using Twitter. I think Twitter is slowly becoming mainstream. What do you think?
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Last night, I remarked to Missy that I was noticing so many people jumping on Twitter. While I love that my non-geek friends are latching on to the community, there’s a sense of sadness that our little island has been invaded by the others. Or maybe we are the others and their plane crashed on our island. Or maybe we are the Dharma Initiative and they are the natives emerging to take their island back.
No idea how this turned into a LOST analogy. But, yes. I believe Twitter is becoming more mainstream. 🙂
I’ve had several friends who finally jumped on the bandwagon this week after swearing they never would use Twitter. Between Twitter’s growth and the improved streaming features of Facebook, I’m pumped!
I would have to agree there. Even the guys in my office are showing an interest. It feels like I’m the only one in the the pool with a horizon edge perched on some hilltop in the Mediterranean, and the rest are just finishing work. Come on in! The water’s warm!
Holy cow … am I NORMAL!? Not-techie, sure. Normal, not so much. Twitter has been on the periphery for awhile, but it has been moving into mainstream for awhile. Rick Sanchez on CNN answers questions on-air that he receives via twitter, Jon Stewart has made fun of twitter, and I can put something into twitter and have it update my facebook status, so it doesn’t create too much extra work. The Obama campaign used twitter during the campaign (apparently the President twittering his location would be a security problem, so they knocked that off quickly) and then when people like Jimmy Fallon, NPR, NASA, Brent Spiner, and many other mid-tier celebrities and organizations twitter … yes, it is mainstream.
I think that any time something is a good idea, and is well-designed and easy to use, this is going to happen. Livejournal was easy to use, and exploded in the late ’90s. MySpace arguably gave people a place to network socially for the first time and it exploded. Facebook was significantly better-designed and implemented, so it became even bigger. If techies want something to yourselves, you have to make it ridiculously difficult for laypeople to use. Or make it crash every ten minutes.
I’ve seen that trend too, that Twitter is reaching the masses now. It’s changing my whole social network dynamic, because Facebook was for socializing with everyone, and Twitter for chatting with my tech-geek friends. Now the line is blurring to the point where I am exploring just sync’ing both updates together.