Well, it has officially happened. Twitter has taken over the world.
In the past week, I have had 10 friends join twitter who were anti-tweet before. Why the change? Why now?
The Denver Post ran an article in the Sunday A&E section about Twitter - http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_11899588
And on March 3rd they ran this Twitter article - http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_11826126
Two articles about Twitter in less than two weeks!!!!
Clearly, the press is jumping all over twitter and as it comes out that John Mayer is tweeting nasty about Jennifer Aniston during a concert or Shaq clearly doesn't know how to spell because his tweets are illegible, Twitter has become fodder for the mainstream. AND it is becoming a news source. People in the plane that crashed into the Hudson were tweeting live from the sinking plane and on the ferries. CNN's news isn't breaking anymore because I read it from the people who are experiencing it on Twitter.
Twitter caught my attention in the middle of 2007. At this point I can't remember who urged me to sign up but I had an account and then I read a story about an American kid in Egypt who got thrown in jail. He tweeted, "Arrested" and kept the world updated with his short tweets. The country was mobilized on his behalf in just a few hours and he was released. All because someone, his Tweeps, found out that he was in jail. I wonder how Twitter will figure into court cases and missing persons searches... "Well, Captain, she tweeted that she was meeting a guy out on cty rd 4 at 11:37pm and hasn't been heard from since." That plus GPS in cell phones should help locate missing tweeters.
But back to why the surge in members. I blame Facebook. So we all know by now that Facebook changed their interface and there are articles all over the web about how much it sucks and what people like or don't like (and then there are the people who don't really understand the Web 2.0/3.0 revolution and make up for it by calling those of us who do understand front end and back end systems and all that idiots and dorks and time wasters... I bet you in a month or two they will be calling us to help them get set up on Twitter or Facebook). I'm not here to discuss the pros and cons of it (because frankly, I don't have the time to and it was done really well here - http://www.alternet.org/story/131866) but I think that the new "Twitter-like" Facebook interface helped make Twitter go mainstream but pissed off the Facebookers.
Here's the logic -
Facebook users who are Twitter users saw the similarities immediately. SO we all started Status Updating that and talking about how much we disliked it. That plus the abundance of media coverage about Twitter pushed these people over the edge and they signed up.
Now, I will say that of these people who just registered, many have only tweeted once and the tweet read something like, "Trying this Twitter thing out" or "Signing up for Twitter!" But that's okay guys, just hang in there. I think it was a full year after signing up that I got Twitter-active (now I have 600 some followers and well over 2,000 tweets, I average 16 tweets a day). It took going to the NPAC arts conference in Denver last year to really get me going. I realized I could tweet the wisdom I was getting and share it will my tweeps. It was great!
Anyway, here is another really great blog post on the evangelising of the anti-tweeters - http://www.sarahlacy.com/sarahlacy/2009/03/guest-post-a-facebook-addict-gets-twitter-religion.html
So, needless to say (I think), Twitter is becoming main stream and the early adopters (I like to think of myself as one) will be moving on to the next best thing. And Facebook, you are not it. I'm kinda happy with the change in Facebook... now my addiction is disappearing. Instead of checking it every half hour or so, I maybe check it once or twice a day! Whoo hoo!! I guess I don't need that 12 step for FB after all...