Image Problem/ Marta Colpani (Flickr)

Twitter has an image problem

Twitter is a conversation tool

This may sound obvious to many of you, and certainly after I explain my thinking I hope it is obvious. For me it absolutely was, yet I had somehow never realized it. I had this epiphany a few weeks ago, and it was so obvious once I realized it, I thought I must have been the last person in the world to realize it.

Now a few weeks have passed, and I have posed this idea to several other people, each one when I tell them my epiphany in one sentence they say “yeah, I know”, but thinking about it further, all have had a similar epiphany as I. What is this image problem?

Twitter is a conversation tool. I know what you’re thinking. “Yeah, yeah, we get that.” My question is then, do you really get it? If so, then why is everyone posting only links, why is every news station and startup posting their “news” on twitter, and why is everyone trying so damn hard to get thousands of followers? Marc Andreessen himself has called it a tool to broadcast globally. Twitter isn’t a new giant radio protocol, where everyone can stream their own station.

What is twitter then? Twitter literally is a conversation tool. I think of it as a giant party, or event. Around the event are individual conversations going on, different people talking to each other about different things. The conversations though are public. Anybody in the party can hear the other conversations, and are free to join in on any conversation they wish.

Twitter is built in this way to force you into a conversation. Each post can be no longer than one or two sentences, just like a normal conversation. Blogs on the other hand, allow for more long-form discussions.

When seen this way, it makes the incessant posting of links, and the desperate attempt by many to gain masses of followers seems strange. It’s normal that the best story-teller at a party will gain a large circle listening to their story, yet no one at a party runs around trying to get people to join their conversation circle, why do people do it online?

While it seems obvious to point out Twitter is a conversation tool, the masses of people using it for marketing, and link posting speaks to the point that few people have fully realized this. I’ve made efforts to change my Twitter behavior to better fit this new epiphany I’ve had, and I hope you will do the same. Let’s make the party better for all of us.