The Great Twitter Experiment of 2009

The Internet, since I’ve started out on it (oh so long ago it seems in the 90’s), has changed drastically in its reasoning for existence. It’s strange to think back on the different incarnations and to now realize that most businesses and most people’s lives wouldn’t be able to exist without this “series of tubes”.

Back when the internet first started it was simply there. No graphics (No graphical user interface, either) just command lines that were mostly used by businesses and universities in simple processes and were more difficult to comprehend than more recent versions so people never took the time to learn it. Those that did were coveted for their abilities (and then laughed at behind their backs because they were learning something that wasn’t necessary back then).

These days, unless you were an adult back then, you grew up within the system. There are very few people who don’t know what a computer, and subsequently the internet, are. Kids are basing their lives around facebook, myspace, and online video games. Adults both young and old are using it in their jobs, their daily lives, and fueling their shopping habits with it. One of my older brothers who, until recently, couldn’t even turn a computer on now has an E-mail account, an Itunes account, and buys clothes,electronics, and items for his horses online. It amazes me that even people who once shunned technology as the downfall of our existence and wouldn’t even go near a computer also have it integrated into their lives and now are learning to use it more and more.

..I would love to talk to the creater of the internet (Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with inventing it in 1992) and ask him what he thinks about his creation. I wonder if he ever thought it would grow into such a monster that involves creatures such as pornography, 4chan, and social networking sites. I wonder if he shakes his head at the thought or if he feels accomplished that he’s brought so many people together? Does he look at Chocolate Rain, Numa-Numa guy, ”What What, in the Butt” and feel a sense of pride or shame that he inevitably brought this upon the world as being a part of modern pop-culture?

I bring this up because I’ve recently taken what seems to be the next trendy step in internet usage: “Twittering”. The website (and in essence, me) now has it’s own twitter account at twitter.com/MarkWhitney. This is something that friends of mine have been using for years and that I have been, in all honesty, too confused about the exact purpose of. Many different websites like Facebook and Myspace already have the same features that Twitter has built into them.A simple “What are you up to now?” is all that Twitter contains but celebrities (both real and made up), journalists, musicians, and even the President have been introduced to and repeatedly updating what is referred to as “the Twitterverse”. This seems to be something that is gaining rapidly in popularity and definitely an idea that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. I find so far that I’m enjoying this social experiment and am attempting to keep up with it as best as possible.