Twitter Hate - MSNBC Shows Off It's Black

By Li Evans

I hit my normal news sites early this morning and came across an article that really made me shake my head at the total ineptitude of the main stream media.  It just showed that the author, Helen A.S. Popkin, must be one of those in the "too old" crowd she mentions in the subtitle, that really "doesn't get it".

Sure, at first, Twitter was simply about "what are you doing now", but through the use of its community base and expansion of ways to communicate with Twitter, it's grown past just answering that simple question.

The author even tries to make the article seem cool, by mentioning Scoble and his quote about "Twitter hate being the new black".  This article is even mentioned on MSNBC's front page in a way to catch any "geek's" attention - "Twitter Nation" (notice it caught mine).

The article actually reads like a rant about how "dumb" Twitter is.  There's no mention of how it can be and is being used by Woot, ESPN, CNN or many other major corporations to reach a highly targeted audience. Think they'd mention the RSS to Twitter feature?  How about the fact the messages come to your phone or IM?  Nope, nada, zippo. There's only mention of MySpace and comparisons to Paris Hilton, yeah really Paris Hilton. 

Wow - talk about an author who really just missed the boat and the story all together.  Maybe next time they won't disguise a rant, as an article.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I hate to tell you this, but you're a blogger. By nature, you will be drawn to something like Twitter. You already share your opinion with the world and Twitter is another means of accomplishing that goal. Except you don't have to feel bad for not putting thought into your 'tweets'.

The rest of us non-bloggers still don't feel comfortable or care about sharing our current activity with the entire world. Facebook has Twitter like functionality - status updates. But only your friends can see what your doing. The same was true for IM.

I wonder - how many people on Twitter are not bloggers? And even scarier, how many people would be on Twitter if Leo & Robert never became such huge evangelists for it.

The funny thing is I'm a techie and I'm not really fond of Twitter.

[Li Evans]

Anonymous - I respectfully disagree with your assessment.

I've come to know quite a few people who are not bloggers and actually like Twitter. They are IM people mostly - but still they like Twitter.

I also believe you missed the whole point of the post. This was to point out, there are uses for Twitter way beyond what the author noted and had she done her homework, she would have found that out.

Also, next time, it'd be really nice if you could "own" your posts with a real name, rather than just drudging up drama and not owning it.

Thanks!
~Li