Twittering and...?*

I'm not sure I understand why Twitter exists.

If you don't know what Twitter is, it is a social networking site. Well - sorta. You see, it's basically a Facebook status. But ... that's it. Seriously. You can see for yourself on mine. Just a page with that person's current thoughts on some situation or where they are or just random junk. No more, no less.

The concept was quite disappointing when I found out about exactly what it does. I mean, Facebook already fills the position Twitter tries to occupy, and with a great deal more functionality. And it was quite a let-down after I found out my initial conception of the site was completely wrong.

I first heard about the site through a few advertisements I found either in emails or on random sites. The ads would say that you can "follow" someone through Twitter. When I read that, I took it to mean literally following that person's movements, by way of mobile phone tracking.

And that seemed kinda awesome. I mean, if you could just see where your friends were all the time, you could call them up if they were in the neighborhood or tell them about good places to eat around that person's location. Upon further consideration, the idea of tracking people progressively deteriorated in my mind as I realized that far too many negative results can come from such a function, and my incredulity regarding such a site grew until I decided I would sign up and see what all the hype was really about.

And then, I discovered the truth - that "following" is basically "friending" and there is no function that offers your followers even the chance at triangulating your exact position. Just statuses. No more, no less.

Naturally, I was disappointed with this discovery. I mean, who do they think they are fooling? This already exists! It just seemed silly. But as I played around with it more, it began to grow on me, and I found that Twitter has a few redeeming qualities. First, like I said, it is completely about the status, which, while solitary in focus, has a certain charm to it. I enjoy the ability to text my status to my site. Facebook has the same function, so I cannot justifiably give it brownie points for such a function, but there is something about texting my information to Twitter that I like better than texting my information to Facebook. Additionally, this sole focus on the status, while seemingly odd, makes for a cleaner setup. No background noise or applications or wall posts. Just you and your thoughts. No more, no less.

But it might just be that, as Facebook becomes more commercial and popular and common, Twitter stands as an increasingly attractive alternative to me. It is a way of standing apart from the mob and have what seems like that bit of exclusivity that Facebook used to have, when only a handful of university students had the pleasure of poking one another.

Overall, Twitter isn't bad. It just seems out of place. It is trying to do something that is already done (or, at the very least, was stolen from it and done better), and it is not clear what else will become of it. But, for some reason, I'll keep using it.

But, rest assured, I will never refer to my posts on that site as "Twittering." That makes it sound both irrelevant and annoying, and I can't handle both.

* "Super Troopers," anyone?