HELEN SUCCESS

Are you an orphan tweeter?

I read quite a funny blog post about the incredibly high number of ‘orphan tweets’ in the Twittersphere.

What’s an ‘orphan tweet?’ The one, lonely tweet on a person’s Twitter page, who signed up, tweeted once and then never again. Some of these are quite hilarious.

brittanyblevins what kind of donuts are you offering?
12:23 PM May 8th, 2008

Why sign up for a service you don’t understand and then not even attempt to figure it out. I mean, I didn’t understand Twitter when I first signed up. One of my first few tweets ran along the lines of ‘twitter is baffling me’. I didn’t catch on a first but I didn’t leave my first tweet long enough for it to be classified as an orphan tweet. That’s six months if you’re wondering.

On the social networking scene in general though there’s been a massive transition of Facebook users to Twitter, me included. Only I’ve abandoned Facebook. I can sit at a computer for hours and not even type Facebook into the url bar, quite a change from the endless hours I used to waste on it. I have no issues with it but it’s just not for me anymore. Another thing, how Facebook determines ‘top news’ is a mystery to me. It’s hilarious! What’s ‘top’ about so and so updating their status saying their leaving their house now.

Twitter has that sense of being much more immediate. Fair enough Facebook can be used on the go but Twitter is just that little bit more immediate. It’s not a ‘I can sign in for 5 minutes’ business. If I tweet @ you and you reply 10 days later when you sign in, erm, #deadthat. That’s not how it works. It’s a constant timeline of what you’re thinking, what you want to say or even just what you’re listening to.

I prefer Twitter to Facebook and don’t ever see myself really reverting. So you orphan or rare Tweeters, why did you really sign up? Is it because it appeals to you or simply because everyone’s doing it?

Read the original article on SLATE.