Thursday, June 04, 2009

Twitter is AIM for adults

At the monthly NVMDA* last night, the topic turned (as all tech topics do these days) to Twitter.

What those of us with teenagers reported is that Twitter is a complete non-phenomenon for the otherwise technologically-obsessed younger generation.

Our conclusion was that Twitter is most exciting for people who don't use instant messaging. To be sure, Twitter != AIM and vice versa, but Twitter provokes a fascination with instant communication among older geeks that younger geeks like my son experience every day via text messaging.

Not that this necessarily spells any sort of dire outcome for Twitter, just that it is unlikely to replace SMS as the communication vehicle of choice for the next generation of computer jocks.

* Noe Valley Men's Drinking Association, a poorly, but aptly named group of thirsty gentlemen.

2 comments:

Neil Mackenzie said...

Thos of us with teenagers could do worse than skim this UC Berkeley Ph.D. thesis by danah boyd: Taken Out of Context (pdf). The subtitle American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics gives some idea of the content. In practice, it is a pretty easy and interesting read on teen use of the (pre-twitter) internet.

Christopher Keene said...

Weighing in at a hefty 406 pages, I suspect that report will be hanging around on in my virtual inbox for a good long while!