What is Twitter?

I'm not going to tell you what Twitter is, as defined by its functionality, you can Google that on your own if you are one of those "technology-despisers" and are clueless about it.

On an aside, technology is a tool, and can be used for good or bad - in a vacuum "things" have no assigned values, rather culture provides the context for the tool and often decides for us whether they will be used for good or bad. This is why decentralized, bottom-up technologies are important; since we ultimately are the culture (and not the TV/ad execs), we decide the relevance and meaning, rather than having that pre-determined and shoved into our suggestible, conditioned dual hemispheres of learning potentiality.

What do you do with it, what is the purpose?
Some people don't "get" Twitter, what's the purpose they say? These people often have nothing to contribute to the community and lack original thought - it's not that they don't get the tool; they don't get the open aspect of it, or that fact that there is no purpose for you to follow. Much as with life, you are free to make your own meaning, and if you fail at that in life, you no longer contribute to the human experiment - if you fail at that online, well, the ramifications are slightly less drastic. There is no pre-established purpose, and that's what's so great about it - it's like an inkblot test, what is it that you see here?

Concept of the "information lens"
People on Twitter can be seen as sort of an information lens or information filter. Some lenses help you see better, some if you put them on, will cause you to fall over or give you a headache. Some are microscopes, some are telescopes. It’s ultimately up to you to define your purpose within the community.

Technology as metaphor/progress - Twitter is the "now"
What is technological progress? In my opinion, technological progress moves increasingly towards mimicking already naturally occurring systems (Fuller knew what was up with that). How does Twitter fit into this? Twitter is the closest technological metaphor that we have in the communication realm, as it provides a technologically inspired interpretation of …
1) thought to thought connection between person and person
2) thought to noosphere connection

Twitter serves as the "now" of communication. What are people thinking right "now," what about "now," what about "now?" A string of nows starts to form a timeline, this timeline extends and weaves through all followers, and there you have it, a technologically enabled, memetic history, put on display for all - an interconnected commentary on the sum of human knowledge. Another important feedback loop created. Now of course, some people post banal minutia of their day-to-day, but you simply don't have to follow those people if you choose not to (you are a filter remember). Also realize though, that everyone's reality tunnel shapes The Reality Tunnel.

Is it important?
Information travels faster than ever before, Twitter is a case study to this point. Feedback loops, within feedback loops, ultimately define reality. When the information which defines these loops starts traveling faster, the loops travel faster in accordance—this is why I think time seems to be traveling faster. If time is based on some ultimate objective superstructure which our subjective reality is imposed upon, and our perception of it is related to the flow of information through the superstructure, and the information is traveling faster, then the very nature of our reality begins to change. I think there is a lot of esoteric meaning to all of this connectivity and information flow that people are blissfully unaware of. We often don’t grasp the meaning of events until ex post facto. Until then, I encourage you to join one of the many Informational Feedback Loops Possibly Governing the Superstructure of Reality.

Oh yeah, you can follow me @MikeMezzadri

Peace