Friday, September 21, 2007

The twitterverse posse

The twitterverse is, well, atwitter. One of Chris Lehmann's students went AWOL. He mentioned it on Twitter and suddenly everyone was in on the act. I don't follow Chris, but I could see what was going on through the comments of the people I do follow. Using the link in their messages, I could access an aggregation of Chris's outgoing tweets and follow the progress of the prodigal.

I've seen all sorts of uses for Twitter - some trivial, some more significant - but last night I saw the twitter community behave like a village. Just as in The Truman Show, when everyone was out hunting for the missing Truman, communicating via their in-ear devices, co-ordinated from the control centre hidden in the fake moon. It was quite endearing, and an indication of the personalisation of our online connections.

Yes, yes. I've read the stuff about how online relationships aren't really friendships. I've even contributed to the discussion. I'm not naieve enough to think that all these people are lifelong friends. But they do care. And in an impersonal world, where many don't even know their next door neighbours, it counts for a lot!

1 comment:

Tinfoilstar said...

Well said... and absolutely true.

However, what other take on "friendship" becomes possible which might necessitate a re-take on the essence of human relationship and interaction?