Twitter is the nose of the dog
Twitter is a niche tool and you love it or are bemused by it. I think that it is best understood as a meme tool - its anthropological economics are geared towards the fast filtering and propagation of interesting ideas - as opposed to, say, analysis.
In this respect it is like the nose of a dog. Dogs are constantly sniffing their environment. The dog is trying to understand which of the options to take:
- Ignore it
- Lick it
- Urinate on it
From the dogs perspective, the best result is that it has discovered something worth eating. Sniffing is an efficient way of testing lots of objects for edibility. If they pass, they qualify for the next stage - licking or chewing. The dog can still reject it at this stage. Once swallowed however it is more committed.
Even in the stomach though, even more serious (expensive) organs can still reject (vomit up) the consumed object, but this takes effort and discomfort.
Beyond this, the object is decomposed into materials that are either utilized or expelled.
If Twitter is the nose of the dog then blogs must be the tongue, mainstream media the gullet and academia the gut. At each point we are filtering what is useful, useless and dangerous, qualifying for the next stage.
The nose is not the biggest organ, in fact it is a rather small one. But it is supremely useful and digestion starts there. Twitter will remain niche but it (and the services to come) will allow society to absorb more and higher quality information in this, the information age.
2 years ago