More intriguing comment on Twitter released today by Pear Analytical, a US based Market Research company who, after constant analyses of tweets, found that 40% of all the messages on the website were deemed to be ‘pointless babble.’
This, it is fair to say, is utterly staggering for two reason. Firstly the way the analysis is presented in the media suggests that the 40% in question is far too much, which begs the question what is a tweet? Surely the whole point of the website is to constantly talk ‘pointless babble.’ Indeed my overall impression of the twitter experience is that the most interesting tweeters tend to be those with verbal diarrhea who simply don’t know when to stop talking; sometimes I do want to know that Bumble is having a pint or that Scoffe is listening to his ipod. This has to be the point of it all. It is certainly not designed for insightful political comment or encouraging democratic debate, it is unquestionably supposed to be humble and simple mumblings and musings.
Which brings us very neatly to the second reason; if only 40% is ‘pointless babble’ then what on earth is the other 60%? Is the research suggesting that the other 60% of tweets on the site are of value? If this is the case then is Twitter actually becoming a media tool? One would suspect not nor should the site have any pretentions to become one. If it is to survive then it should do so by the sheer weight of people’s interest into the everyday and mundane of normal life rather than by the media hype it courts and develops.
Ryan Kelly of Pear Analytics sums his opinions of the twitter phenomena by saying it is ‘a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else.’ For some that is unquestionably what makes the site so interesting.
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