Scripting News - Latest Comments in What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Biju — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:48:09 -0000

Twitter became a phenomenon in front of our eyes within such a short time.. techies soon realized the potential of twitter not only as a social networking tool, but as a powerful tool for search engine optimization..It has provoked curiosity among people who did not quite follow what twittering is about.. rarely does a phenomenon cover all aspects of people such as this: the techies and the non techies.. i am interested to see what twittering will do in the next few years to teh social networking at large..

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Grey the earthling — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:23:56 -0000

The BBC has gone with “…the mini-blog website Twitter…”. http://ur1.ca/2nvu Seems like a sensible description, though I'd use “service” instead of “website”.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Grey the earthling — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:14:49 -0000

(Slightly unrelated:) in the UK, almost no-one uses “xerox”—and I suspect very few people know what it means—because “photocopier” has a transparent meaning.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

RiledUp — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:02:57 -0000

I also don't know what's wrong with with microblogging.

A slick twit. Skysend

http://riledup.com

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Ethan Gahng — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:35:19 -0000

How does "status broadcasting" sound? The thing about "Microblogging" is that these things are not used for the same purpose as blogs, and it will give a wrong impression to the mainstream users. But I already have a bad feeling that Twitter may become the next kleenex. However it would be really awesome to see grass-roots approaches like yours and Leo's succeed in stopping that from happening, since that is where it's supposed to go.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

enamu — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:02:13 -0000

I don't feel right about the term "microblogging" because twitter is more like IM than a blog. I'd like to call twitter-like services... hmm... OM: Open Messenger. =)

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

adam — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:17:32 -0000

What about a bloop?
"Hold on a sec I need to make a bloop"
or what that be take a bloop ?

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Hungry Garden — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:05:39 -0000

Hi Dave:

I don't think we can go with twitter per copyright

In reading Clay Shirky' Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, just a bit into it and its good
http://www.shirky.com/weblo...

I'd like to suggest "octavo messages" based on Shirky, No really, seriously, if you think about it a minute. It sounds great, its short. It has a related interpretation. And, no one knows what the hell it means so its easy to "bend" its meaning to new interpretation. Hell, they'll think your talking about music which is always cool to seem artsy.

From Shirky (which you got to admit is one way cool name too.)

"During the wrenching transition to print, experiments were only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type. What seemed like a minor change — take a book and shrink it — was in retrospect a key innovation in the democratization of the printed word, as books became cheaper, more portable, and therefore more desirable, expanding the market for all publishers, which heightened the value of literacy still further."

Octavo seems apropo. Its the kind of word that most people don't know what it means (at least I didn't) but they think they do. But, when they look it up they say "Of course, I knew that, it means little"

keep keeping 'em honest

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Hungry Garden — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:34:27 -0000

Hi Dave:

I don't think we can go with twitter per copyright

In reading Clay Shirky' Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, just a bit into it and its good
http://www.shirky.com/weblo...

From Shirky (which you got to admit is one way cool name too.)

keep keeping 'em honest

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

George — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:38:23 -0000

May I suggest something novel (sorry if it's bad, i m no native english speaker)?

why not call them just 'logs'? it's, like, shorter than 'blogs', and it's accurate, because that's what it actually does.
- hey i logged about davewiner's latest article!!!
- you crazy little logger
- i 'm gonna log my ass off tonight

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Michael — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:28:29 -0000

Yep, thats it: twitter _is_ easy. People changed the interpretation from Twitter = service, to twitter = social short messaging (or snm, social news messaging). After that the huge amount of them don't think about it, they just use it that way cause it's the social construct that most people agree on - and: it's simple ;-)

The only chance to change that would be a word that is already common like "i'll text you" ("I'll sms you" is harder to pronounce) and add something specific. For us "twitter" will never be what birds do again (in the first place). But to replace the word with something that people do would be nice ;-)

Because twitter messages always deal with my peer group and news that could be relevant for them "I peer you" or just ""give me a sec I'm peering" could work - it just changes the you = one, into you = many.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

kosso — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 04:54:23 -0000

"blims" : blog-like interactive media streams ;)

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

kevinmarks — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:30:49 -0000

You can have your own Jaiku now - it was open sourced today:

http://code.google.com/p/ja...

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Khurram — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:46:43 -0000

Been on twitter for about 3 weeks. I have seen a moderate boost in traffic. Mostly traffic from people just browsing for more followers, but traffic none the less. Next step: learning how to build a stronger network and convert these additional eyeballs in to fans and sales. come check me out.

http://twitter.com/spryka

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Wing Yu — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:58:52 -0000

What exactly is microblogging?

What happens if I were to write a script that takes a blog entry and automatically divides it into ~140 character chunks and push them out at regular intervals?

What if I string together related twitters (or unrelated incoherent ones) and publish the composite as a single entry? Am I back to blogging?

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

kosso — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:46:13 -0000

As you know, I'm constantly trying to think of names and words for things. I'm planning a simplified stripped-down version of Phreadz (which I long-windedly call a 'social multimedia networking forum') and I still haven't come up with a 'word' for it. I kind of wish I could eradicate the word Twitter from my thought processes and come up with a simple word, with vowels included (shock!) and an available .com domain.

It's hard! Trying to come up with something which represents a means to publish multimedia, share multimedia and have 'conversations' through multimedia using any platform (or medium) out there with an api to plug in to (bi-directional if possible).

I suppose it could just be *any* word. Then, if enough people use the service and talk/tweet/blog/etc about it then it becomes *the* word of 'it', whatever 'it' is ;)

sigh. we shall see.....

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

shokk — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:23:19 -0000

And remember that it's not about the service itself, but the content. A site with an awesome project or product to talk about will attract people to talk about it on the site, whether it is structured bulletin-board based discussions or a twitter-like flow. First and foremost, you should consider what content you want to present, and whether it is worth anyone's time.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

shokk — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:19:51 -0000

too long. I "messaged" you. Simple.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

shokk — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:18:38 -0000

This just feels like something you hope self-fulfills. I don't see or hear anyone calling Facebook's new layout a Twitter. I think at this point everyone knows Twitter is a specific thing.

But now is the time to set that name in stone forever. Since you're consciously trying to shoot for that, make it count. Will it be a "tweet"? Or a DM? Or just plain "message"? How is it different from what we did with IM? Maybe I just "pinged" you.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

interstar — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:21:30 -0000

We (at least in the UK) still talk about hoovers and biros.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

dave — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:28:12 -0000

That's what I think too.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

Jordi Soler — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:28:09 -0000

Just a quick reminder: if you want to build your Twitter-like community the easiest way (Twitter "for dummies"?) is to set up a blog in wordpress.com and use the Prologue or the P2 theme. They're made for that. No need to use code.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

@osmarjardim — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:43:51 -0000

Now I have a clear idea of what you mean, dear Dave Winer, webblog pioneer. The one that invents a technology usually names it. Too witt folks came out first with what they named "twitter". Probably in near future microbloging will be referred to as "twitter".

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

dj chang — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:31:04 -0000

good observation. twitter has become coke, kleenex, xerox.

That also says any other public, i.e. non-enterprise, service would have a hard time competing - including Google or Yahoo.

Re: What will we call a Twitter? (Scripting News)

kawika — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:25:20 -0000

Xerox, despite trademark lawyer's best efforts, is still a common noun and verb to most people. I don't see any reason why "Twitter" and "twitter" won't also live side by side, especially with "tweeters" "tweeting" their "tweets." The nicknames may too clear, clever and concise to be replaced with something less so.