Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Stop the twittering

It seems as if everyone is joining Twitter at the moment. This morning I had an email from a work acquaintance inviting me to join. And now I see that QRZ.com is on Twitter. What's the point of it?

I got as far as the home page, which says that "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" So it seems to me like just another way to help people be even less productive by interrupting them with pointless questions. I don't want to be disturbed when I'm working on something, or even when I'm on the air, by people wanting to know what I am doing.

There is already a device called a telephone which allows people to keep in touch by the far superior method of speaking. If people I know what to know what I am doing, they can phone up. If I would like to receive a greater number of enquiries as to my current activity I can also leave a radio on a local repeater and let people know I am monitoring it.

If I want to tell the world what I am doing, I can do so at a time of my choosing using my website or this blog. In other words, I think enough ways to contact me exist already. Nobody needs Twitter, except people who are afraid they might be missing out by not joining the latest fad.

So G4ILO is not on Twitter and has no intention of twittering, now or in the future.

1 comment:

  1. Very much enjoying your site, but I think you may have been a bit unfair to twitter here. Different methods of communication suit different people, and while you may never use twitter yourself that in itself doesn't make it pointless.

    Some people might think that ham radio is pointless since the invention of the mobile phone. Of course they would be missing the fact that ham radio is more than just talking to people, just as you missed that twitter is more than just telling everyone what you are doing.

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