Last week saw London’s first Twestival, an event that will soon be described in the OED as ‘a gathering of twits’. Unless you’ve had your head in a bucket of snow recently you’ll have no doubt heard of Twitter. It’s the latest in a long line of internet phenomena otherwise known as social networks.
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These sites share many common characteristics. They allow users to contribute, distribute and discover personal information with friends and strangers. They rise fast. Sooner or later they all seem to hit the buffers too. This week we hear that Friends Reunited may be put up for sale by its owners, ITV. The broadcaster paid £175million for the site just two years ago and is now expected to get as little as £20million in return. Ouch. The yet-to-turn-a-profit Facebook is showing signs of peaking and is now under fire for its plan to retain users’ content. Forever. Regardless of whether people seek its removal or want to close their accounts.
So what chance Twitter then? While I haven’t the foggiest how they plan to turn a profit out of this I can see myself getting hooked. For a start the posts are pleasingly short and come thick and fast. There’s a text generation charm to the brevity and immediacy of the Twitter lexicon which seems to be mutating live before your eyes.
For the celeb obsessed Twitter is a godsend. The service allows you to know what Stephen Fry had for lunch, that Lily Allen is feuding with Perez Hilton and that Barack Obama wants to say thanks. It’s celebrity stalking from the comfort of your home with the full and willing co-operation of the stalked.
LondonNet doesn’t like to be left behind with these things so we set up our Twitter page a while back. We tweeted a little then fell off of our perch out of boredom. Now we’re back and the whole thing’s revved up. We’ll be using Twitter to post site updates and the occasional random nonsense too. So if you fancy hearing our tweets ‘follow’ us at:
twitter.com/LondonNet
P.S. We’re keen to hear your tweets too. So if you’re on Twitter tweet us with things you’d like us to cover and let us in on your very own random London thoughts.
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