Omeo and Julie

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question. Well, it's the question I am wrestling with anyway. Clearly there is a critical mass out there who think the answer is yes. On the other hand, 60% of twitter users apparently quit within a month. The Marmite of the web? Defenders suggest not. It is less "love it or hate it" and more "get it or don't get it". I am at the Fox Mulder "I want to believe" stage. I want to get it. I am trying to get it. I don't get it yet.

I may be destined to join the queeters, but I don't want to just give up without giving it a fair shake, as it were. A chronically late adopter of technologies, I have made the mistake several times of dismissing a new thing as a pointless fad only to later open my eyes to the wonder of it all. iPods, Facebook, noise-cancelling headphones, Macs, steptronic gearboxes, etc... all examples of things I once dismissed and now hold in high regard.

I am watching on the TV right now a ballet of Romeo and Juliet. Well actually, it's on. I am not watching it. I am posting pictures to Facebook and writing this blessay. In fact, the TV is on mute which does rather reduce the resplendent reverie and raucous rivarly of the oevre. This is relevant how? Well, firstly it demonstrates my tolerance for the ridiculous. I can't simply write off Twitter as pointless while I am absorbing in peripheral vision a ballet sans son (which would have been an excellent logospiel had it been by Saint-Saens but sadly, Prokofiev, oh well). Secondly the opening credits revealed that this production was filmed in wide screen and has been trimmed for 4:3 format rendering the title as: omeo and julie. Am I a 4:3 TV from a bygone age encountering the wider than wide screen tweet-o-vision and failing to see it's full splendour not because of lack of willingness but because I am simply an incompatible technology?

Well, maybe, but I am going to try to stretch my dimensions a bit and see if I can find the metaphorically missing r and t that will help me "get" Twitter, which, incidentally, is also topped and tailed with the same two letters, which, when removed, reveal witte. And actually, I prefer that. I can "get" weeting. I am interested in wit. I am interested in people's insights, witty remarks, pearls/nuggets/gems/droppings of wisdom. And I could be interested in getting it several times a day in small doses (ahem.. the wit that is). It's when people (on facebook, twitter or whatever) feel the need to share the mundane and the trivial that no-one on this or any other planet could possibly give a monkey's arse about, that I just want to run and hide in the nearest available nuclear bunker and pine for the good old days.

So what makes a good tweet? A robin. Robin's make lovely tweets. In fact, Baskin Robbins makes a wonderfully varied array of exceptionally good tweets. The best ones are certainly not Vanilla but, perversely, they sell more of it than anything else. Twitter too I think plies a trade in Vanilla that obscures the richness of fascinating flavours, of frothing fruitiness, of chilling chocolate, of, of, of, well variety and creativity and vitality and vivaciousness. Certainly 140 characters of textual Vanilla ice cream, a mere morsel of magnum magnolia, is not the essence of a tweet I want to savour five times a day, or ever really.

On the other hand, no-one wants "an inspirational thought for the day" delivered this way either. There are RSS feeds you can slap in your iGoogle home page for that if you really must. The core question on Twitter is "what are you up to?". I think tweeting about anything else is silly - it's not the right forum. If you have something substantive to say, blog it. If you are merely repeating what others have said (quote of the day, thought for the day, banal bibilical babbling of the day) just don't. Mantra repetition of the form "I hate Gordon Brown" is uninteresting. What's interesting is what you have to say, what you are up to, what your insights are to a situation, what it is that you have uniquely observed about Gordon that makes him so unpalletable to you. I shared a plane with him once, seemed like a nice enough guy. Who really knows? What was cool about it was the experience of seeing him and his entourage of curly-wire earpiece wearing heavies on the plane and how they deplaned before the rest of us and were taken off by a police escort. Very Spooks-y. That was my experience of Gordon Brown which I found to be highly interesting and had more to do with sharing a plane with the Prime Minister, than anything to do with him personally, although my voyeuristic observation of him during the flight from Edinburgh to London led me to form an opinion of him as a hard working and serious man juggling family and work responsibilites as best he can. What he didn't do was stand up and walk down the plane shaking hands and canvassing for votes at the next election. He was heads-down the whole time in work. I formed a respect for him as a person, regardless of politics. I can't describe this in a micro-blog entry though, so what to tweet? Probably "Flying back to London, with the Prime Minister" and leave it at that. It's interesting - it's not an everyday occurence. No Prime Minister though, and it's not interesting at all, and there is no need to tweet about it.

Another type of tweet I am interested in receiving, is one from a friend who may be somewhere close with as little to do as I, and interested in buying someone lunch. This would cause me to respond and volunteer to help them out. That is real-time social lubrication, that forethought and planning will rarely achieve and nor will Facebook. This in fact, may very well be the tweet sweet spot.

So I think at the moment, I have concluded that good tweets are some combination of personal insight, witty observation, and potentially useful to others. They are not an exhibitionist's diary.
My views will likely change as I try to use it more, but at this point I feel my ultimate acceptance or rejection of Twitter will be based on my ability to both provide and follow people who provide tweets that, for the most part, meet these criteria.

We're not there yet, but Julie's got a bottle of poison in her hands and she's not afraid to use it. Shame really, pretty girl. Omeo babbino caro, it's all over !