dagblog - Comments for "The dagbuzz for 3/17/09: (Ashton, Oprah and Generation Twitter)"

Hey, after all this time, you

acanuck — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:04:23 +0000

In reply to I don't like the whole idea.

Hey, after all this time, you think you can just barge back in and steal people's catchphrases? I don't like that idea either.

How the hell have you been?

You're analysis is better

Orlando — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:34:02 +0000

In reply to Excellent analysis, DF, both

You're analysis is better than mine, which basically amounts to, "I do not like them on a train, I do not like them on a plane."

Dr. Seuss is my sherpa.

I don't like the whole idea.

quinn esq — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:30:30 +0000

In reply to The dagbuzz for 3/17/09: (Ashton, Oprah and Generation Twitter)

I don't like the whole idea.

Excellent analysis, DF, both

acanuck — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:35:56 +0000

In reply to I think you've got it,

Excellent analysis, DF, both here and on Orlando's blog. Much better than mine, which basically amounted to: "I don't like the whole idea."

I think you've got it,

DF — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 23:44:52 +0000

In reply to The dagbuzz for 3/17/09: (Ashton, Oprah and Generation Twitter)

I think you've got it, Muerte. The Twitter phenomenon has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with culture.

Here's a brief story: When MySpace started blowing up, a good friend of mine expressed to me that he didn't understand why it was so popular. Now, he's very tech savvy. So, to him it didn't make sense that anyone would care about what MySpace was doing. It was a web site that seemed to place stricit limitations on what you could do with it. Why, he wondered, would someone want what basically amounted to a crippled web page without its own domain that you didn't and couldn't own?

With MySpace, I could see exactly why it was so popular. The web is a collection of technologies with an impressive and flexible feature set. However, if you're not aware of the breadth of these technologies and conversant in the lingua franca, then you might as well go down to the hardware store and grab a can of spray paint, find yourself a nice blank wall and get busy blogging. Or put up yet another half-hearted, under-construction page at GeoCities or AngelFire.

MySpace made the personal web page dead simple. Many other entities, ISPs and web portals being the primary perpetrators, had tried to offer this to a seemingly tepid public. MySpace took off because it lets people do what they want to do: Have a personal web page that links to all of their friend's personal web pages so that they can exchange comments and pictures and such. The same can be said of Facebook, which, for a while, was the educated netizen's MySpace. I think that there's also another factor here, which is that MySpace was a new brand that made itself synonymous with the personal web page at a crucial moment in the expansion of accessibility to the Internet.

Regardless, MySpace was a technological fait accompli. So is Twitter. They both are better explained culturally rather than technologically. It is precisely the cultural explanation and its implications that leave such a bad taste in my mouth and, apparently, yours as well.

Wit, yes. Manners, no.

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:26:05 +0000

In reply to Duly noted.

Wit, yes. Manners, no.

I am sensing a trend

elliottness — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:49:44 +0000

In reply to Thanks for coming by

I am sensing a trend here...

come over to FB and have a good cry on my wall.

ouch

elliottness — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:48:47 +0000

In reply to Duly noted.

ouch

Duly noted.

jaisizzle — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:46:35 +0000

In reply to Thanks for coming by

Duly noted.

Thanks for coming by

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:43:23 +0000

In reply to I was alerted to dagblog by

Thanks for coming by jaisizzle. Call it a TPM spinoff. 4 of 6 writers used to contribute at TPM cafe. Some of us still do.

As for confining our blogging to matters of profound intellectual importance, dagblog does not confine anyone's blogging. We try to find intelligent, witty writers with broad interests, strong opinions, and a taste for snark and let them to write about what's on their minds, be it The Bachelor or international trade agreements in Madagascar.

DF has spoken highly of you, so I hope that you'll join us in speaking your own mind. But if our stories and discussion don't interest you, well, there are other blogs out there.