There’s been an overwhelming amount of love for Twitter this year, but Larry King might be single handedly responsible for starting my disenchantment with the most recent installment of the seemingly annual progression of the latest and greatest social media wunderkinds. To be fair, my disenchantment began a few months ago, but a tweet a few days ago (2:58PM on July 26 to be exact) from Larry King’s official Twitter account (@kingsthings) sealed the deal:
Larry, I’ve got some news for you. For at least three reasons Twitter is the absolutely, positively WRONG medium to use for finding out why a Marathon is 26.2 miles.
First off, Larry, it demonstrates what we’ve kinda been suspecting all along – namely that you’re a no-talent, hack who’s risen to your station through merely the arbitrary caprice of fortune. The standard answer to this question is pretty much conventional wisdom. I’ve taught middle school kids that could answer it.
Second, Larry, you can actually get your answer faster by using this crazy, new technology called a search engine. I’m sure this whole Internet thing is probably brand new to you and has to be pretty confusing (in fact, it’s probably pretty safe to assume that you’ve got some ghost writer Tweeting on your behalf to solicit the questions for your interview with Colin Powell that you’re unable to prepare on your own). But just in case you actually do get on the Internet someday, I created a demonstration of how this new-fangled thing called a “search engine” can help you find answers to life’s persistent questions. Just CLICK HERE to see how it works! Then, to get your answer click on the blue, underlined text at the top of the page that says “Marathon – Wikipedia the free encyclopedia”.
Third, Larry, the answer is actually more nuanced than you might think at first blush. Turns out that the distance from Marathon to Athens is shorter than 26.2 miles. Turns out that primary historical sources disagree about whehter or not the first “Marathon runner” ran before or after the battle of Marathon. Turns out that the 26.2 mile distance was the result of a series of last-minute changes made to the first modern marathon route established for the 1908 Olympics in London. Maybe you knew that the standard answer wasn’t 100% accurate (I doubt it). But even if I stretch my imagination beyond the comprehensible and give you this benefit of the doubt, the fact still remains that crowd sourcing via your celebrity Twitter account is the least effective and most time consuming way to actually get your answer. Just take a look at the overwhelming volume of responses your question generated by CLICKING HERE. You’ll notice something pretty quickly: a lot of people know some version of the standard answer, but nobody agrees on the more nuanced details. If you’re really into crowd sourcing your answer, you should just cut to the chase and go to Wikipedia where the crowd sourcing has already been done for you. Plus, Wikipedia has at least a modicum of editing that’s gone into their content.
Which brings me back to how Larry King finally brought about my disenchantment with Twitter. In short, Twitter has become filled with crap and wading through all that crap takes more time and effort than regular people should have to put into it. It takes a considerable investment of one’s time to follow Jeb’s advice about having a meaningful online converstaion and craft your Twitter network to a manageable level so that it’s actually useful and doesn’t become a ridiculous time sink. What we need first and foremost in an answer is “correctness”. I have yet to find a better way to get “correctness” than by identifying an authority that can be trusted. It’s way too easy to present the appearance of authoritativeness on the web without actually being an authority. Just look at all the self-proclaimed authorities who wound up giving Larry a technically incorrect answer to his question. Finding an authority is hard work (even off line). Crowd sourcing via Twitter doesn’t get you any closer to an authoritative answer. It just compounds the problem (especially when you use a celebrity account). I know it’s tempting to think that crowd sourcing via Twitter is the way to go when it’s been so successful for Wikipedia, but Twitter just doesn’t work like Wikipedia.
I used to think that Twitter was pretty cool and pretty useful before the proliferation of celebrity accounts from the likes of Larry, Oprah and Martha. So it looks like I am now beating Jeb to the punch in writing his next latest-social-media-fad-jumps-the-shark-blog-post. Why is it that all these social media sites go through the same cycle of explosive growth that eventually brings about their demise? I suspect it’s because no one’s figured out a really good way to make the hard work of identifying authorities become easy. Finding an answer “that works” by playing a numbers game through social media sites can work OK for a while so long as the numbers stay fairly small. However, once they reach their critical mass these social media fads just implode. Plus, playing the social media numbers games just skirts the fact that the answer is by no means guaranteed to be authoritative. In attempting to make finding an authority easy, Twitter seems to have thrown their lot in with the celebrities. Or have the celebrities high-jacked Twitter? Either way, that celebrities have made a good thing bad should be pretty self-evident. I hate to say it but it seems that counting backlinks and other artificial “signs of trust” like the search engine algorithms do is the best thing we’ve got going so far.
So, Google don’t be worried by Jeb’s post that opined whether Twitter is a Google-slayer. It isn’t and it won’t be. In fact, it’ll probably be something our kids and grandkids reference when making fun of our generation. I can already hear my daughter incredulously asking her friends, “Can you believe our parents spent their time at work reading ghost writers typing ‘In da house ATL!!!’ on some rapper’s Twitter account?”.
And if you’re wondering, yes, I probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. So feel free to flame me in the comments below for being so hard on the beloved institutions like Larry King and Twitter. But be forewarned: I’ll probably be just as snarky in my responses as I am now.
Tags: epistemology, larry king, social media, twitter
Looks like that post might have been one of those “I’m pondering this question” posts. I’m not a Larry King fan by any means, but this kind of post goes back to the early days of twitter – the point was to let people know whats on your mind at any given time. It seems that at that time the question on his mind was “Why is a Marathon is 26.2 miles?”. He, as well as most other twitter users who post similar things, surely isn’t relying on twitter responses for questions like that. In the odd case that he may be relying on it, I’m sure that it is a question that simply sparked enough curiosity to post it and forget it. This is an area in which google just isn’t able to accommodate anyone. The I have a question, but simply don’t care enough to give it more than a couple seconds of thought.
While I agree that it’s (very) unlikely Larry King is the one posting his tweets, I have no doubt that the rapper posting “In da house ATL!!!” is actually that rapper. Celebrities are all about the tweets.
There is a thin line between “doing it right” and “not getting it” on twitter. I think overall Larry is doing it more right than the rapper. Though, people love feeling like they’re connected to celebrities, regardless of what they say.
Jack,
He’s also doing it more right than the web pornographers and spammy internet marketers that you have to keep blocking from following your account. But to say he’s better than P-diddy or a blatant spammer isn’t saying much. He’s still not “doing it right”.
If you want to see a guy who “gets it” and is “doing it right” follow @Slingshot_SEO
Thankfully Twitter doesn’t automatically sign up new accounts to follow the pornographers and spammers. But they do automatically sign you up to follow Larry, Martha and P-Diddy (unless you go through the unecessary effort of opting out). Why does Twitter do this? Are these the model citizens of the Twitter-sphere? Is this what I should aspire to have my Twitter account become?
If so, then this is the death of Twitter. Twitter is engaging and rewarding when there is a two way conversation. But these celebrity accounts are all about having another auxiliary 1-way publication platform for the celebrities. Sure we can opt out. But why does Twitter keep trying to opt in every new user?
-Ben
Jack,
Here’s a sampling of some of Larry’s recent Tweets.
Of all the muffins, corn is my favorite.
-1:13 PM Jul 21st
I love black licorice, but you can have red licorice.
-7:06 PM Jul 20th
I don’t know why, but I could never get into yoga…
-5:45 PM Jul 17th
Why are objects in the rear view mirror closer than they appear?
-6:10 PM Jul 14th
So, Jack, you’re right. Larry is “doing it right” I take back everything I wrote in this blog post. Finding out that Larry’s favorite muffin is a corn muffin is precisely the reason I created my Twitter account. I sure am glad that Twitter tried to opt me in to following his account when I created mine. Otherwise, how would I ever know that Larry’s just not that into yoga?
I didn’t say he’s doing it right. I said he’s doing it more right than the rapper.
Jack,
I don’t see much difference between Larry telling me his thoughts on yoga and corn muffins and finding out that P-Diddy just landed at the Atlanta airport. What’s he doing “righter”?
Why do you two (Ben and Jack) carry your conversation on in the comments section of this post when you could both probably swivel around in your chairs and discuss your differences in person?
Oh wait.. I know why…. it’s because you want it to look like people actually give a crap what you post on this lousy blog. The joke’s on me!
Pretty pathetic if you ask me…
dang!
fact is they can actually spin around and talk to each other but prefer to have it out here for some reason.
No I am not “Jeffy”
Jeffy,
touch??
I suspect Jack is an ardent admirer of Larry King and wanted the world to know he doesn’t share my sentiments.
I on the other hand am so desperate for comments that I’ll respond to anything.
Ben,
There’s a theory called Social Proof that I think is in play here with Twitter, Hollywood, and Internet Marketing in general. Social Proof says that when we’re uncertain about how to act, what to do, or what to say, we look around and see what everyone else is doing and assume that they must know the answer. This I believe plays a large part in why many ‘useful’ things on the internet quickly go from obscure to cool to crap so fast. Eventually everyone’s doing it, but no one knows why.
Twitter is simply a tool. And like any tool, in the wrong hands can produce bad results. Think of Twitter as a hammer and the masses running around like a 3 year old hitting everything in site just because. Eventually they will tire of the hammer and it will take it’s place next to the other toys (Myspace) in the closet.
Before I’m off to watch MI-5 on Netflix, I have couple more questions inspired by one of my favorite movie quotes from As Good as it Gets. Are we annoyed because the masses have ruined something useful? Or are we really annoyed because once again we’re reminded that celebrities have got it so good in this country?
Keep up the good work. We’ve been admiring your team from a distance for some time.
Larry’s “tweets” have always been extremely profound and interesting in my opinion. I always figured Lar’ was a Blueberry muffin guy…and red licorice just hasn’t tasted quite right since the king professed his love for red.
If you want to get your mind blown and your life changed – @kevinfederline Booyah!
Harry,
I think you’re spot-on about social proof being at play in the trajectory of ‘useful’ sites on the web. As you point out, it explains why so many people (celebrities included) seem to abuse the latest and greatest internet tools like Twitter and MySpace. They simply don’t know how to use it. The spammers are outright abusive in the sense that their both their intent and behavior is sinister. But the spammers are a minority; the masses simply just don’t know any better.
I also think your analogy of the three year old is fantastic. It explains a lot of what’s going on. I’ve had a tendency to (rather lazily) blame the sites themselves for going from cool to crap. But your analogy got me to see that it’s not really fair to blame the hammer for the racket created by a bunch of three year olds banging on stuff.
You’ve got me now wondering if there’s something(s) inherent in the nature of social media on the web that makes it transient. My two primary suspects are (1) the scale of the web that seemingly overnight can make online social networks become unwieldly large and (2) the fact that it’s not that hard to find (or even create) another new toy to replace the old. If there was nothing to move on to after MySpace, we (i.e. the social network on MySpace or the MySpace “community”) might have taken better care of it.
In response to the questions with which you end. I think I’m annoyed by both. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I am envious that the celebrities can get away with dishing out vapid content. That they’ve got it so good, allowing them to get away with it, does annoy me more than the mindless chatter itself. Non-celebrities do the same and I’m much less annoyed by them and sometimes just tune them out. Still the mindless prattling is annoying in itself. And when it gets too much for me I’m glad that the web hasn’t completely rendered Gutenberg obsolete and I can still pick up a book to read some Plato or Dostoyevsky.
There are many deficiencies with social media, but the most glaring to me is it’s inability to capture the non-verbal feedback that we subconsciously process when having normal conversations in the offline world. Digital communication is inherently flawed because of this, yet I don’t think we fully acknowledge the extent to which it is. Because it’s still so new our “online social education” is on a kindergarten level compared to our “offline social education”. Here’s an illustration of what I mean.
As we grow up, we’re constantly testing and refining our social interactions with others. And at the same time our social peers are correcting us when we step out of line. For instance, my 2 year old nephew thinks it’s natural to interrupt a conversation by declaring ‘Mom, I gotta POOP!’. Of course, at his age that is not only valuable information but on some levels really funny. But eventually my sister will start correcting him as he gets older. This social correction will be a natural part of his growth as a social human being.
Because of the infancy of the internet and social media, we’re still trying to define this social education. Sure we still apply our own personal “social rules” to our communication, but by and large we’re still unsure. Is Twittering about your favorite bagel really that important? I would suspect that if Larry proudly announced this in the green room at the studios, the other people would have a wtf(?) look on their faces. And Larry would instantly get that feedback and probably keep that to himself in the future. Why? Because those people are real to him and he doens’t have to face the social consequences of not be accepted. But Twittering about it is ok because the audience isn’t real to him. They are simply pixels on his assistant’s screen.
What social media lacks is well-defined social consequences. The masses simply are not real to us. They are just pixels on a screen. In fact, with the millions of people connected on the internet, every personality quirk, fetish, annoyance, or trait is not only represented, but probably organized and encouraged by someone. So what naturally serves as a filter in our “offline world” only exists if we are communicating with people we actually know and care about. So in some ways anything goes o nthe internet.
In other words, social structures we have built over 1000s of years of societal evolution are non-existent on the internet. These social structures that aid and also protect us socially in the offline world are still being defined and built in the online world. For now awareness of the deficiencies is about the best it gets.
The best thing about Twitter is that you get out of it what you want out of it. If you want to follow Larry King and Shaq and keep updated on them (or ghost posters) stroking their egos or being non useful then you can unfollow them. If you dont care what Ashton Kutcher has to say then dont follow him in the first place. Follow people who you think post useful information. Twitter is a micro blog service, if you wouldnt sign up for Larry Kings blog then dont follow his micro blog. If you subscribe to a web development blog then follow them on Twitter. You make your own Twitter experience, kind of like Cold Stone without the ice cream goodness