Twitter: A Multipurpose e-Tool
A short review on a TedTalk by Evan Williams, part of the funding team of the Twitter and previous CEO and chairman of the company.
The speaker of this TedTalk is Evan Williams an Internet entrepreneur and computer programmer who participated in the founding of Twitter back in 2007. In this talk he speaks about his experience in creating Twitter and describes this project as an example of how all ideas are valuable and have the power to spread and develop into something completely new and unexpected. Williams describes his decision to follow the side project of Twitter as a hunch, "Follow hunches eventhough you can’t necessarily justify them or know where they are going to go.”
He begins by stating the simplest way in which we can understand Twitter’s purpose. It allows the user to publish concise updates that can only hold up to 140 characters. It was envisioned by the company that it would simply represent important moments in people’s lives that they were willing to share.
Nonetheless, Twitter has evolved as an outlet for news, politics, academia, education, research, entertainment, economics, etc. Today, Twitter is unique because it is a social network to connect with family and friends and at the same time it also caters to all interests and purposes.
An example of Twitter's multipurpose function within the news is the 2007 wildfires in San Diego in which many Twitter users turned to the network for news coverage and for personal information on the wear abouts of loved ones. The L.A. Times and the L.A. Fire Department set up news feeds to keep civilians updated meaning you could check the official feed as you checked the updated status of acquaintances. Another example is its popularity in politics today and in the past, in 2009 the president and about 47 members of congress had Twitter accounts. This past year during the elections we all saw the uproar of opinions and emotions that were expressed in the social media site. As the talk progresses it also brings up multiple other examples in which Twitter has developed to serve different purposes today such as raising funds for families in crisis to bringing communities together at times of crisis.
The reason that I chose to discuss this TedTalk is that it is an example of how the public can change the purpose and the way that the media is used. Twitter is one of these examples and hence it is an interesting page to study.
A short review on a TedTalk by Evan Williams, part of the funding team of the Twitter and previous CEO and chairman of the company.
The speaker of this TedTalk is Evan Williams an Internet entrepreneur and computer programmer who participated in the founding of Twitter back in 2007. In this talk he speaks about his experience in creating Twitter and describes this project as an example of how all ideas are valuable and have the power to spread and develop into something completely new and unexpected. Williams describes his decision to follow the side project of Twitter as a hunch, "Follow hunches eventhough you can’t necessarily justify them or know where they are going to go.”
He begins by stating the simplest way in which we can understand Twitter’s purpose. It allows the user to publish concise updates that can only hold up to 140 characters. It was envisioned by the company that it would simply represent important moments in people’s lives that they were willing to share.
Nonetheless, Twitter has evolved as an outlet for news, politics, academia, education, research, entertainment, economics, etc. Today, Twitter is unique because it is a social network to connect with family and friends and at the same time it also caters to all interests and purposes.
An example of Twitter's multipurpose function within the news is the 2007 wildfires in San Diego in which many Twitter users turned to the network for news coverage and for personal information on the wear abouts of loved ones. The L.A. Times and the L.A. Fire Department set up news feeds to keep civilians updated meaning you could check the official feed as you checked the updated status of acquaintances. Another example is its popularity in politics today and in the past, in 2009 the president and about 47 members of congress had Twitter accounts. This past year during the elections we all saw the uproar of opinions and emotions that were expressed in the social media site. As the talk progresses it also brings up multiple other examples in which Twitter has developed to serve different purposes today such as raising funds for families in crisis to bringing communities together at times of crisis.
The reason that I chose to discuss this TedTalk is that it is an example of how the public can change the purpose and the way that the media is used. Twitter is one of these examples and hence it is an interesting page to study.