I'm over Twitter.
I'm an admitted trend-follower. An early-ish adopter. I jumped on Twitter awhile ago, for work reasons, really. Turns out a lot of museums tweet about their exhibits and events.
So I got a personal account and started following/being followed, from locals to Obama. At the beginning it was cool -- you were supposed to answer the question "What are you doing?" I like the premise of brief broadcasts about what random folk are up to at a particular moment. Sort of like an in-the-present haiku. Almost zen, you could say.
But most tweets I receive now are not fun to read. In fact, they're pretty unreadable. Due to the limitations of length and the desire of most twitterers to promote something, most messages end up looking like a bunch of hieroglyphics. You can retweet, reply, hashmark, include shortened URL photos and links, all of which have their own code. So a typical message looks like this:
@jensmith RT @OR_150: Westward Oregon! A Sesquicentennial Celebration, comes to Bend May 29-30. http://bit.ly/zv3QL
This is one I actually sent the other day. Even I don't remember what I included here. [Note to Jen: I changed your last name to preserve your innocence. Ha.]
Here's another one from one of our local weathermen:
BMacNewsRT @AdamClark905: Detailed Bend Forecast is out: http://bit.ly/1os5n
From a local who shall not be identified:
excellent, r/t @turoczy Finally, trending by town. Here's Portland http://bit.ly/36s2qJ or follow @happn_in_pdx
MLB#Nationals just announced Grand Slam Flex Plan at http://is.gd/LJw6 as latest addition to MLB.com Fan Value Corner at http://is.gd/LJwJ
Who wants to read stuff like that? Not me. I guess that actually makes me a trend-follower anyway, as there's a growing Twitter backlash abuilding.
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