Fri
Aug
3
What the Tweet? by Will Richardson
- “So let me get this straight…you’re just letting people know what you’re doing when you do this?”
- “Right.”
- “And you call it ‘Tweeting’?”
- “Well, uh, yeah. It’s kinda like a bird letting you know where he’s at, I guess.”
- “And you do this how often.”
- “Depends. Maybe 4, 5…10 times a day. It doesn’t take that much time, really.”
- “Like how much time?”
- “Dunno…maybe 10-15 minutes, total.”
- “And all you’re doing is letting your friends know what you’re doing, right? At any given moment.”
- “Right. But they’re not all friends in the standard sense. I mean I’ve never met some of these people.”
- “And they let you know what they’re doing.”
- “Right.”
- “Even people you don’t know.”
- “Right”
- “Why?”
- “Dunno.”
- “Like that guy teachanlearn is ‘Reading RSS’ and he wants you to know that?”
- “Um, I guess. But he also wants me to click the link there too.”
- “Well, where does that go?”
- “Dunno…let’s find out…it’s a blog post about a new WordPress theme.”
- “And he felt the need to ‘tweet’ that?”
- “Apparently.”
- “Uh-huh.”
- “I know. It’s kinda hard to explain. I mean I didn’t really get it at first…still not sure if I do.”
- “You know all these people…how many?”
- “Twenty-eight right now. They’re all in my network.”
- “The network.”
- “Right. My teachers…my classroom…remember? We talked about this.”
- “Right. And these other people, these ‘followers’. How many?”
- “Um, 209 right now.”
- “209! And they want to know what you are doing?”
- “I guess so, though I can’t imagine why.”
- “But you only follow 28.”
- “Right.”
- “Does that upset them?”
- “Who?”
- “All those people who are ‘following’ you that you’re not ‘following’.”
- “I dunno. I hope not. I can’t follow more than this many right now.”
- “But I still don’t get it. Why do you want to follow them at all?”
- “It’s just another layer of the connection, I think. I mean on some level, I like knowing that Chris missed his plane or that John’s doing a wiki workshop or whatever. It’s not important stuff on any major level, but it adds something.”
- “Like what?”
- “I don’t know. Just…just…presence. Just this weird presence thing. And depth. I can’t really explain it.”
- “Presence.”
- “Well, more than that. I mean a lot of people post links and resources and ask questions and stuff. I learn from it too.”
- “And people answer? So it’s like IM, right?”
- “Um…no. I don’t do this for conversation, though it turns into that sometimes.”
- “I don’t think I get it.”
- “I don’t either.”
- “Then why do you do it?”
