Conscientiously Objecting to Twitter

John Lovett | October 01, 2008, 12:00 PM

Since my peers are jumping onboard, I’ll offer a contrarian’s opinion and my rant about Twitter. Someone asked me recently if they could follow me on Twitter and my response was an emphatic No! Admittedly, I’ve checked on Twitter to see what individuals are up to – or even last week, while at Shop.org, I navigated through the event links leading to Twitter to check the buzz about the event. But I can’t say that any of these experiences has provided any real value for me. Sure, Twittering your way out of an Egyptian jail is a good trick, but I’ve managed to stay out of the pokey thus far just fine without Twitter.

Even my vanity (as a now-Forrester analyst) does not predispose me to presume that anyone cares one iota what I have to Tweet about. If anyone’s really interested, they can visit my blogs here or here and read a full text version of my thoughts rather than the truncated 140 character set. If they’re actually one of my “friends” they can check on my Facebook page that’s infrequently updated with status alerts. Or better yet, when someone really needs to know that I’ve arrived safely on the plane, then I actually call my wife and tell her. Beyond that, I just can’t fathom what’s so important that anyone needs to spend their time waxing poetic in microblog format.

Yes, this is directed @you, so Twitterers, please enlighten me on the value and I’ll keep on open mind.