Twitter : Java Glossary

Twitter.com is the website dedicated to accelerating rumours. A tweet in the same of a short text message sent via Twitter.

A conspiracy to dumb down and destroy the Internet by filling it with trivia and preventing serious discussion. It is the Internet service Sarah Palin uses. Twitter is a service for friends, family and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

The two innovatations are limiting message to 140 characters and removing the ability to respond directly. Unlike email, there is no obligation implied to answer Tweets. This means a public figure can ignore his public.

The limit 140 characters ensure there is only space for a vague overgenerality or an emotional expression of like/dislike without reason. It encourages smart Alec statements that sound clever but mean nothing. It lets people pretend to converse. I will be glad when the fad disappears.

In his novel Capitol, Orson Scott Card describes a civilisation with a cult of celebrity. To prolong the lives of celebrities, they are put into suspended animation only to wake for one day in a century. During that day, every waking moment is holographically recorded. Twitter gives the illusion that you are such a celebrity and the world is desperate to know precisely what you ate for breakfast and how your bowels are functioning.

My nephew, Torrance Coombs, is a movie actor. He is on Twitter. His adoring fans swoon over his one-sentence insider updates and race to share them with others.

Sarah Palin uses Twitter to spread her stoned thoughts and urban rumors with astounding effectiveness.

There are so many people on Twitter, you will find dozens of people sharing a name with others. The only way you can tell them apart is a with a photo. So, unless you have a unique name, you need to upload a photo so your friends can find you. Twitter does not let you view the profiles of others before you sign up to follow them — receive their twits. You can decide to make all your twits public, or to restrict them just to people that you OK.

Twitter in increasingly used to broadcast free advertising, the equivalent of spam on other sites. This will probably destroy it. Every person who has contacted me on Twitter was a spammer.

Oddly, Twitter has become an international political tool for rapidly sharing information. The reason may be that Twitter is accessible from cellphones, enabling people reporting events to get commentary out to the world without censorship.

Twitter is probably the simplest website ever. It is a triumph of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle. It does not even let you upload photos, the way Facebook does. However, most people use a third party application (e.g. TwitPic) to post pictures to Twitter accounts from cellphones or lap-tops.

You can also monitor public twits from the entire planet by subject. Unfortunately, the HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) they ask you to embed is full of syntax errors.

As you may guess, I detest Twitter and eagerly await its demise, much as the hoola hoop fad died.

Book referral for Social Media Is Bullshit

	recommend book⇒Social Media Is Bullshit
	by	Brandon J. Mendelson	978-1-250-00295-2	hardcover
	publisher	St. Martin’s Press	978-1-250-01750-5	eBook
	published	2012-09-04	B007VM9IXU	kindle
Exposes much of the hype behind social media, such as the significance of followers.
Online bookstores carrying Social Media Is Bullshit abe books anz abe books.ca abe books.de amazon.ca amazon.de Chapters Indigo amazon.es Chapters Indigo eBooks iberlibro.com abe books.com abe books.fr amazon.com amazon.fr Barnes & Noble abe books.it Nook at Barnes & Noble amazon.it Kobo junglee.com Google play abe books.co.uk O’Reilly Safari amazon.co.uk Powells other stores
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock. Try looking for it with a bookfinder.