Or Really, Magazines, Plural.
Twitter says it’s “a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.” But it’s really a whole lot more than that. Lately, I’ve been thinking about Twitter as a daily magazine, and I get to be the editor of my own personal edition.
Each Twitter user runs an interactive, constantly updated magazine. Each magazine has articles, features, tidbits, letters to the editors, tips, and advertising galore. Some have photos, called ‘pics,’ while others do not. Twitter magazines have subscribers too. Bucketloads of them.
Magazine staff is made up of everyone under the sun. Twitter has senior staff and junior staff, and there are staff members who have absolutely no idea what their job is, but they are happy to be there. No one gets paid because everyone works on a volunteer basis.
Junior staff hang on every senior staff comment, action, and behavior. Some of them have ambition, just like in paper magazines, while others are just along for the ride. The people with the most followers by and large were already well-known, and already had numerous paper magazines or blogs following them. Now, people follow them on their own Twitter magazine.
Your Twitter page is your magazine cover. Your tweets are headlines and sound bites that entice people to read your next tweet, or to turn to the next page so to speak.
Writing is generally not nearly as good as in old-school magazines, but no one seems to really care all that much, especially since each sentence is too short for you to get a feel for any real substantive writing style. People do pay attention, however, to tweets referencing great articles, if they manage to see them. You don’t have to be a good writer, you just have to know how to find great writing.
The magazines are free. The only cost is time. Much, much time. If you have 15,000 Twitter magazines – or folks you are following – to wade through, as many Twitterers do, that’s a whole bunch of reading. When will you ever find the time?
Twitter articles range from interesting to so boring your eyes fall out, and from valuable to totally irrelevant (yet sometimes entertaining) drivel about the morning’s breakfast or it coming back up. (Not that we aren’t all genuinely concerned for our fellow woman or man, but really, would you spend all day reading blog posts about how the weather is in Wyoming today or what your friends ate for breakfast?) Unfortunately, this means that to find the really good magazines, junior staff must wade through hordes of magazines which have nothing to do with their interests. But they do so religiously. Like sheep.
Why? Because junior staff are looking for the secret to success, their own personal key that will show them the way to the senior staff lounge and their own private chair. Only senior staff have these keys, and everyone knows it, so everyone reads what senior staff says, follows them and falls on their every tweet.
One of the coolest things about Twitter is that its creators have made it easy for people to blog without blogging. That is, since you have only 140 characters, you don’t really have to write much. You can rely on others to write great posts, then just link to them.
What are the primary differences between Twitter magazines and old-school magazines? Well, the paper and permanence for starters. The bigger difference is that with Twitter everyone has the opportunity to have an equal voice. Sort of. Some voices are louder or more eloquent or more valuable than others.
Why is it important to see Twitter this way? Perspective gives you wings.
Now that Twitter has put the publishing power is in your hands and you are creating your own magazine, you can make it a whole lot better. Your tweets can be substantive and add meaning to the conversation. Imagine if all tweets did this. Why, Twitter could read like a well-thought-out daily magazine.
2009 marks the fourth year running that Train of Thought has acted as design firm, providing graphic design services and printing management, for the Seattle International Bicycle Expo, a Cascade Bicycle Club event. It is a great source of pride to be able to help the nation’s largest bicycle advocacy organization inspire more people to ride their bikes.