Keller @ Large: The Best Part Of Twitter
BOSTON (CBS) - I admit it, I came grudgingly to the Twitter revolution, and I'm still not sure it's that great an idea.
For the 80-percent or so of the population who don't ever use Twitter, it is a so-called "micro-blogging" online service that lets you post short messages with links to stories if you like, which can then be viewed by anyone who follows your Twitter feed.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
Keller at Large March 28 2014
You can be a passive Twitter user, merely taking in feeds from others, or an active one, responding to other Tweets, engaging in Twitter exchanges with others, and even re-Tweeting other Tweets on your own Twitter feed.
Got all that?
Anyway, while I am on Twitter using the handle @kelleratlarge, and do use it for a variety of purposes – mainly killing time at boring press conferences, to be honest – I do find it to be a very shallow means of communication.
You can't say much in 140 characters. Sarcasm doesn't translate well, which is a problem for me.
And what you do say can easily be misunderstood or distorted, leading to all sorts of unwanted problems.
Which is all a lead-in to sharing the Twittersphere's anger over their plan to drop the re-Tweet function.
What are they thinking? Re-tweeting is the best part of Twitter.
You can safely re-Tweet nonsense under the standard disclaimer that a re-Tweet doesn't constitute endorsement. And what could be more gratifying than watching your own nonsense get re-Tweeted around the world by other Tweeters?
This is a total outrage!
Oh…what's that? Twitter isn't dropping the re-Tweet, just calling it "sharing" instead?
Oops.
Sorry.
Guess I shouldn't have re-Tweeted that particular nonsense after all.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
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