Loo.me

I read this article by Tim O’Reilly called “Why I Love Twitter” and it has some good points. Specifically:

1. “Following” instead of “Friending” – in my opinion, only true/proper social networks that are primarily about social interactions (like Facebook or MySpace) should use 2-way friending.  The rest should allow for 1-way following.
2. “Ambient intimacy” is about deepening people relationships via short messages and thoughts.  Similar to how you get to know someone who’s desk is right next to yours because of offhand comments, you can do the same via twitter
3. Cooperating with others – Twitter allows others, even competitors, to utiilze them.  And it seems to only strengthen twitter.
4. A true mobile app – for me this is the first mobile application that works better on mobile than the web.  It has truly changed how i think about working on a mobile device

Twitter is an interesting beast because it’s still niche but gaining steam.  People also love to bitch about how it doesn’t have a business model.  This is true, it doesn’t but neither did email for a long time and now it’s one of the biggest driver of pageviews and engagement on the web.

Related articles:

• Why Twitter Didn’t Sell to Facebook – Really
• Twitter: Just like Family
• Biggest Battle Yet For Social Networks: You, Your Identity And Your Data On The Open Web