

Matt Maroon - Oblivious to Obvious (Corp) - kyro
http://www.mattmaroon.com/?p=357

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paul
I had a hard time explaining the web to my father in 1994. I guess that will
never take off either.

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brlewis
I think Matt's point is that if you start to explain Twitter to someone who
isn't already excited about it, you yourself will have a hard time grasping
what's exciting or even desirable.

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tptacek
Pretty much everything Matt said about Twitter applied to blogs as well.

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amichail
Twitter lowers the barrier to entry in that respect. Most people don't have
the patience to write reasonable blog posts. But with Twitter, a single
sentence will do.

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Xichekolas
Making it easier to 'say something' doesn't always improve the discussion.

That said, I think twitter is amusing. Game changing? Who knows. But you can't
deny it's a case of something that on the surface seems downright worthless,
yet people have done some really creative things with it... like the story
written one twitter at a time, and the twitter poems, and the fact that it
seems to be a new PR outlet. Anything that people use in ways not envisioned
by the creators is bound to go somewhere... whether that place is 'mainstream
profitable enterprise' is yet to be seen.

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tptacek
"Worthless". Pretty funny. Why was I in TheStreet (<http://snipurl.com/25hkc>)
last week? Twitter.

Yes, my opinions on how crappy The New Pornographers were live this weekend
are not particularly useful. It's not the messages that add value; it's the
access to people. It seems to work particularly well for the trade press, who
can use it as a LazyWeb.

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Xichekolas
...

Did you even read what I wrote? Maybe I'm clueless and 'trade press' and 'PR'
are two different things... but if not, then that is exactly what I said.

Also, "something that, on the surface, seems downright worthless" != "twitter
is worthless"

My whole point was just because a messaging service limited to 140 chars per
message may seem like a gimmick, it's not, because people find creative uses
for it.

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tptacek
Sorry, I didn't mean to come off so aggressive. Bad habit.

I'm just pointing out a startup-relevant use that Twitter has, which is
bidirectional access between the press and companies. When you said PR, I
assumed you meant what JetBlue and Comcast did with the service.

~~~
Xichekolas
Ahhh, I forget that big companies like to spam everything.

For my part, sorry to come off so defensive... Going through caffeine
withdrawal.

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rms
>Hell, try explaining it to your wife or girlfriend. Oh wait, I forgot, you’re
in the tech industry.

omg, like totally burned

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yters
Just you wait till Japan starts selling their robotic women. Then look who's
laughing!

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paul
Apparently Twitter is big in Japan. Coincidence?

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brlewis
I'm generally with Matt on this. My project is at the opposite end of the
spectrum from Twitter, as I wrote at <http://ourdoings.com/2008-04-17>

But I'll stop short of predicting that the mainstream will stay oblivious to
Twitter, even though that statement is 90% likely to be right.

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-be-
right-90-...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-be-right-90-of-
time-and-why-id.html)

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dhouston
matt -- add images from doingitwrong.com to each post and that uncov gig
should be in the bag :)

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Tichy
Maybe those non-tech people simply don't matter. They live on another planet.

