A Very Social Medium
This year was my twelfth year on Twitter. It's grown from one of many experimental social media platforms back then to something everyone has heard of. Despite its now corporate nature and the way it can be constantly abused and used as a channel for bile and hatred by the cowardly and the loud, there is still something about it I find compelling. Many of the important features that have come to define the platform (@-ing people, RTing a tweet) were first invented by early users of the system and it's partly these home-grown origins that I like ("...the street finds its own uses for things..." William Gibson, Burning Chrome) but what keeps me coming back is something else, something personal. I can of course see where the main criticisms are coming from but I disagree with them. "Oh it's just boring, who wants to read what someone had for breakfast every morning?" If that's all you're seeing then you're following the wrong people. ...