Several folks in my Twitter circle have been discussing the pros and cons of Public vs Protected Twitter updates. The whole thing seems to have been started by Scott Leslie, who shook up our Twitter miniverse by protecting his updates(!). Chris Lott jumped in and posted an interesting perspective on his ‘blog with the provocative title, Donning the Twitter Condom, and D’Arcy Norman highlighted some of the distinctions between Twitter vs the Blog, resulting a healthy amount of back-and-forth commenting both in Twitter and on ‘blogs comment fields.
In a nutshell, Twitter allows users to set their Twitter posts to be Shared on the Public timeline so that anyone and everyone can see them, or protect them. The question is, does Protected updates limit a person? Is it counteractive to what Twitter is supposed to be? What is Twitter supposed to be?
My perspective is that Twitter needs to provide both via a flickr/vox-like public, friends, family, friends and family, and even private messaging option. As it stands now, Protect update is above all frustrating (until you get used to the fact that it usually doesn’t matter if your Tweets are public because most people don’t care) in its limitations; it certainly doesn’t allow for the sort of compromise in publishing that I envision.
The first day I used Twitter I sensed this weakness, checked the settings, and knew immediately I had to have mine protected. Much of it for the reasons D’Arcy describes: [semi]privacy in Twitter allows for more candor, spontaneity, and perhaps even an occasional ribald or off-the-cuff comment than I would indulge in on a blog–either posting or commenting.
But I’m also naturally a very private person, and there’s plenty about me and in my personality that I do not wish to share with strangers, let alone the public. Sure, like everyone I crave attention and recognition at some level, but I personally prefer to temper that craving with a strong defense of personal control. Twitter is publishing whether you like it or not; trying to distinguish it from publishing a blog article by virtue of intention is simply fooling yourself.
As for meeting new people and expanding the social network I must say I don’t feel I’ve been inhibited by my privacy. I explore lots of folks just by browsing the ‘Following’ of other friends and ‘followed’ colleagues. Additionally, I believe even with privacy Twitter has substantiated distant or loose connections I have with probably a half-dozen individuals.
I follow just over 18 active people, and that’s just about my threshold for msg intake (I still can’t read all their msgs). A little more than a dozen follow me, and that too seems to be just about my limit for a potential audience–at least as far as Tweets are concerned. As just about everyone else has observed, anything better/larger/broader than a Tweet should be published on a blog.
So what’s Twitter for? To me:
- Simplified, spontaneous/rhythmic journaling (output; private/semi-private)
- Micro-blogging (output; public/semi-private)
- Idea-sharing/cognitive apprenticeship (input; public)
- Substantiating one’s social relationships (active/passive interaction; semi-private)
- Expanding one’s social network passive/active interaction; public/semi-private)
Of course, there are more reasons or applications than this, in different priority, and probably better phrased too, but this is how I apply Twitter: a medium that’s somewhere between a private journal and a ‘blog, something that’s like instant messaging but innately more archival and group-networked. It’s very very good, perhaps a life-changing tool (for good or ill?), but certainly not perfect.