Usually it’s the kind of notification from the twitter app I dismiss without notice. But given it was the same day I dissed their other big offer
I did give some pause of twitter telling me it was 15 years ago today I signed up for their silly service. No I am not going to tweet the tweet they tossed my way, and I have plenty of fungi-able photos of the number 15.
Of course I am dialing back to January 31, 2007, and I do vaguely remember the first tweet (not monumental) being a callout to Cole Camplese whose blog post shoutout (raise your hands if you remember blogs? They were like extra long twitter threads) nudged me to give the little bird a try.
No third party apps are needed to find your first tweet, just the advanced twitter search, plug in your handle for the From These Accounts and a date range that surrounds when you started. Today was easy since Twitter said it was 15 years ago, so here is the excitement of my first twittering day.
It really was a good post, even if Cole’s blog is long gone. I’d heard people talk about it for weeks? months? but it really was an idea of Cole describing (relying on memory here) how it was an effective way to ping and message his colleagues at Penn State University.
The analytics on that tweet are not impressive (it’s likely too old a tweet to have garnered any ‘lytics but I think it makes a point about their pseudo-meaning)
It was like how Clive Thompson just 6 months later in How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense (Wired) described it as providing “social proprioception”
It’s like proprioception, your body’s ability to know where your limbs are. That subliminal sense of orientation is crucial for coordination: It keeps you from accidentally bumping into objects, and it makes possible amazing feats of balance and dexterity.
Twitter and other constant-contact media create “social proprioception”. They give a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination.
https://www.wired.com/2007/06/st-thompson-4/
That hit then as being profound, at least for 2007 Twitter. There is probably a less desirable term for 2022 Twitter
I twittered for an hour, terribly exciting stuff here. Note the frequent reference to “twittering” (when did it become “tweeting”?)
Instead, I closed the window and opened a blog post (yes, this was the paleolithic internet era, crude stone tools you NFTed TikTokking kids).
I managed to bash LinkedIn and Twitter in one swoop! I believe Cole had called out my colleague D’Arcy Norman, and he started the same day 15 years ago (of course he quit and re-joined and quit like 5 times) as D’Arcy blogged the same day on Twittering describing it as “nano-blogging”.
I’m not even sure how it worked, because there were no @ mentions then!
It so reminded me of this funny auto generated site I used in my talks about blogging The Dullest Blog in the World (web archive link, the dull has died). That thing was so clever, my kind of sarcasto-tech
Not all that different from my first day of 7 tweets, and following 3 and being followed by 3 people (likely all the same people, I see Cole and D’Arcy for sure).
But people were spitting out stuff like that in 2007. People like me. So I decided to take a trip back in the Twitter Time Tunnel I made, and set the date in the machine to January 31, 2007.
And because the internet is made of little wisps of serendipity, the tweet at the top was from Anil Dash, the guy who’s tweet inspired me to make the time tunnel. But what he “twittered”, 15 years ago, hit like an ironic THUD
That little bit of almost tiny relevance would have a whole new impact 15 years into his future. But the steady stream of little “doing this” “thinking about that” bound into 140 character boxes, no images, no hashtags, no live links, holy moly…
Yet I found the experience of networking connecting so much more seamless in Twitter than LinkedIn (which I have not seen for like 10 years):
I had really dismissed both of these tools when I heard about them, yet a little digging and not being totally close minded has yielded some interesting results. But their entire approach to Social Networking really show a marked difference on which side of the Web 2.0 timeline they started. Not good or bad, just different.
Enough blogging, I got some twittering to do.
https://cogdogblog.com/2007/01/networking/
I’m still rather a fan of twittering, despite how it has morphed into something that would sooner gift you NFTs than a simple GIF (great response JR)
I’m 15 in twittering years. Woot.
Featured Image:
11/2006 and I can’t even remember how I found my way to Twitter!!
Look at you, early bird, in 2006!
https://twitter.com/NancyWhite/status/333523
How are those blog posts coming? 😉
Interestingly I’m blogging again like I haven’t for years! Kismet! Take a peek https://www.fullcirc.com
I know! I just read your post because it got shared by Stephen Downes (as I have told others “you got Downsed!”)
Now I am checking to make sure you are in my RSS reader.
What is this “sabbatical” thing you write of? Oi, we gotta catch up!
Yeah we have to catch up!!!