Hello! Can Anybody Hear Me?

“We’re changing the world with technology.” – Bill Gates

The words, globalization, internet and social media/networking are no longer confined to the offices of large corporate companies and classrooms but they can be heard in casual conversations. Surely, you can realize the truth of this statement as you: hear about couples having dates via Skype, see people FaceTiming on their iPod Touch and MacBooks, walk pass the hundreds of people PINGing away on their Blackberries/iPhones and read the thousands of Twitter updates and Facebook updates. At a glance, technology has helped people to connect and closed the gap between nations but...Are we really closer?

As an avid tweeter, I always get asked the questions “Why do you tweet? What’s the point of Twitter?” *sigh* another lost soul who’s stuck in the past. As a Marketing major and former Computer Science student, I’ve written so many essays and ranted to so many of my friends about the significance of Twitter and other forms of social media that I know the examples and statistics like the back of my hand. I got a bit carried away last semester and ended up writing a 6 page essay on social media for an exam that only required a one page essay but I’ll try not to put you through that. So the best things about Twitter according to me are as follows.

Twitter keeps you up to date

Not once did I have to turn on my TV to find out what was going on with the recent Egypt revolution. I got a 24 hour play by play from all the news agencies on my timeline. It’s simply quicker and easier to send a tweet than to prepare a story for press or wait for a reporter to be camera ready. For those who are more concerned by what’s happening on their favourite show than what’s happening in the world, well you should see my timeline every #Jersday umm…I mean Thursday at 10pm. For anything that’s going on in the world, you’re sure to hear about it first on Twitter.

Twitter is potentially marketing heaven

It’s a free way of advertising what you have to offer that also allows you to build a rapport with your target. Companies such as @BlackBerry and @Digicel_Jamaica have set a standard that other businesses should try to live up to. Their giveaways and willingness to reply to tweets, whether it is feedback, complaints or queries has helped them to develop brand loyalty among their users. Celebrities and even politicians have used Twitter to connect to their supporters and sometimes for some speedy damage control. 

Twitter is the people you want to know while Facebook is the people you do.

I once tweeted that I value my twitter friends more than my Facebook friends and I confused and slightly offended a lot of my followers who are also my Facebook friends. The people I follow on Twitter are usually the people whose I deem interesting, I care about their thoughts and opinions enough to want to follow them and read them while being my Facebook friend can either mean we’re actual friends or in some cases that we have met and I know of you. Twitter is a different form of networking. You can develop a network based on your interests and share your opinions with those who will appreciate it.

Twitter can save lives and change the world

The spread of information can be a powerful thing. Twitter itself has chosen to downplay their role in Egypt’s revolution but there are many other cases in which Twitter has sparked change. I’ve reblogged for a cause on many occasions but for a more impressive example, let’s take a look at the Haiti 4636 story. It all started with this tweet for help: 

by Josh Nesbit after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. One of his followers then put him in contact with Jean-Marc Castera, a network engineer for Digicel and with some more networking, skyping and the help of many Haitian Creole-speaking volunteers, 4636 was born. 4636 became the emergency number that Haitians would text to about injuries, survivors or reports of missing people. The text would then be translated by a volunteer and its location pinpointed by the Office of Innovation at the State Department then passed along to the Red Cross or U.S. Coast Guard who would send help. You should really check out this video and hear about the experience from Josh Nesbit himself.

Anyway, it’s not every day that we get to witness or partake in a revolution or such remarkable humanitarian efforts. Most days, my timeline is just cluttered with tweets about what people had for lunch, what they should wear today, how much they despise school, how much they adore/hate Justin Bieber or even worse the alphabet, each letter sent in an individual tweet. I believe that the reason behind the success of social networking/media is none other than our over inflated sense of self-worth. Narcissism has led people in my generation to create millions of different blogs, update their BBM/Facebook status 30 times a day and send mass tweets about their trivial lives. To be honest, I follow more news agencies and tech sites than real people, there are only about 15 real people whose tweets I actually look forward to reading and as Twitter becomes more popular, I seem to tweet less and less because of the pressure to follow your friends and be subjected to more mindless babble.  

My point is, I really don’t care about the things that typical tweeters tweet about so does anybody else? Unless you’re a business, new agency, celebrity, expert in some field or incredibly funny, entertaining or informative, does anybody actually care? Do our blogs, Tumblrs, tweets and Facebook updates stick in someone’s mind for more than a minute? I’m starting this blog so that my inner nerd will have a home, so that I won’t have to harass my real friends with tech talk when they couldn’t care less but it’d be nice to know, is anybody listening in here?