Twitter: A Worthless Tool for Conversations
Nov 11th, 2009 | By Rex Gradeless | Category: Blogging, Featured, Lead Article, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Web 2.0, YouTube
Chris Pirillo argued last Sunday that Twitter is essentially a worthless tool for having conversations. After listening to the video below, it was clear Chris was right.
Twitter is a pretty worthless tool to have a conversation.
I define a conversation as back-and-forth dialogue between two or more parties. If you have ever been on Twitter, you’ll notice that the tweets are not threaded and therefore trying to figure out the context of a conversation is nearly impossible.
For me, Twitter leads to a little back-and-forth and Direct Messages (DMs). DMs lead to email address exchanges and then more in-depth conversations. A great networking tool – no question!
The closest thing to conversations on my stream are typically 2-4 back-and-forths at most (rare).
You, or your business, can respond to consumer questions (this is a good thing) and you should be monitoring what people say about your brand on Twitter. However, actual conversations (meaning more than a few back-and-forths) are nearly impossible using Twitter.
Do you agree? Lets have the conversation below! 
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Twitter is useless for actual conversations, particularly informal conversations between two people. We used to call that chat. Twitter is many things to many people. One-to-one chat doesn’t work on Twitter because the participants are too distracted by Twitter’s ambient noise level: other tweets, spam, functional failure (aka the fail whale), and others are distracted by the conversation.
In the realm of online communications, the term “conversation” is generally used as a metaphorical one referring to the ebb and flow of information on the web. If you look at it that way, Twitter is just one of hundreds of “places” the conversation is taking place. I publish a link to a blog post. You read the blog, and click a link taking you to a second blog where you leave a comment. A conversation can be defined as “the spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings.”
[Reply]
Rex Gradeless
Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Accepting a broader definition of “conversation” that encompasses all online communications would certainly not preclude Twitter as a conversation tool. This is why I used a more narrow definition of conversation in the post. Clearly, a conversation can also happen on comments to blog posts. We exchange ideas an propositions and the dialogue is threaded. People can easily follow along this comment thread to follow the conversation.
With Twitter, following the “wave” (for those Google Wave fans out there) of the dialogue becomes much more difficult and next to impossible. This is why Twitter for conversations is not entirely feasible. Twitter for Q & A or small chatting back-and-forth is clearly possible.
“Trying to hold a conversation on Twitter is like trying to use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail in a steel door frame”. You’re using the tool for something it wasn’t entirely made to do. (Not entirely sure why the door needed to be steel in Pirillo’s example!).
Though, I am for innovation and usually follow the “to each their own” approach when it comes with trying to establish bright line rules for Twitter.
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Any time you type something out – it is not a conversation. Typing is one way communication. A dialogue does not happen until there are two actively engaged (so perhaps can equate to comments on a blog and such); however, a “conversation” literally requires the spoken word.
Think about it. When you are speaking with someone do you allow their words and ideas to shape your next thought or do you just drone on until you run out of thoughts and then let them comment?
I agree that twitter is not a tool to converse. The telephone is. Face to face is even better.
[Reply]
Rex Gradeless
Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 8:46 am
So true on the technical definition Andrea.
Virtual conversations have somewhat stripped out the vocal element and redefined the term to some degree.
Face-to-face can never be replaced by virtual communication – agreed.
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I see Twitter as similar to meeting someone at a noisy, busy function – maybe in the lobby between sessions. We connect, and then, as you describe, establish a basis for further conversation in/on another venue.
To say that it is “impossible” is a bit of an overstatement. Indeed, as Twitter has evolved (grown!), conversations are less probable, but w/o conversational interactivity, Twitter would be a wastre of time. People who don’t discover conversations usually abandon Twitter.
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In a very direct sense, this is true, but there’s even potential for conversation at the ambient noise level. Take a set hashtag that garners a manageable level of participants, and by regularly checking any new tweets, conversation can and does occur. I see this happen every race weekend with the #MotoGP hashtag. A commenter above me pointed out how, in real life, you don’t ramble on aimlessly and then wait for someone to ‘comment’ in response. Twitter inherently limits this by capping each ‘comment’ at 140 characters, or about two sentences. The reason why, for many people, 140 characters seems far too short is not because it’s impossible to converse at that level–we do every day–but because it’s radically short for a *written* conversation. It seems strange because twitter actually forces us to use the structure and dialog structures of vocal conversation (e.g.: I express one idea over one or two sentences, you respond, i respond, etc.)
The biggest hurdle to conversations with twitter is simply the time delay between tweets in a conversation. And, in fairness, it is a massive hurdle. But, when taken in the context of a multitasking environment, the time delay actually facilitates more conversation, because if your boss comes over to your desk and steals your attention for 5 minutes, the conversation over twitter doesn’t miss a beat.
Two addendums: I know you weren’t arguing that the 140 character count limits conversation, I was merely bringing it up to argue how it actually facilitates it. And, it is very, very refreshing to see a column or blog post on this topic that is more intelligent and articulated than simply, “twitter sucks”. Kudos to you, sir.
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