Why most people don’t understand Twitter
Despite being well connected with a lot of my friends and colleagues online, only a handful of people I know use Twitter. Ask the others and I often get to hear “I just don’t get it!”. This got me thinking – I have never heard such a reply for any other website! Then what is it that people find so mysterious about Twitter?
The answer was right on Twitter’s homepage.
Check out Twitter.com. All I see is – “Share and discover whatβs happening right now, anywhere in the world. Join the conversation. Sign up now”
There is not a single word on why and how you can start using Twitter. Anyone who comes to Twitter.com for the first time will most certainly have the following questions in mind –
- what is a tweet? How do I start twitter-ing?
- what does @someone mean?
- Why do people say “RT @someone” and what does it mean?
- Why do I need to “follow” someone and how is it different from adding a contact on a social network?
- What does a #tag do?
- What is twitter search and why is it useful to me? What exactly is a trending topic?
and none of them get answered. No wonder. In essence, Twitter needs it’s “missing manual”.