Does Twitter Suck? Yes, But…

Please follow me and I'll suck you up.

Call me a Twitter whore. I tweet night and day, both for entertainment and professional reason.  I’ve been tweeting so much I almost abandon this blog all over. For this reason, I very well understand why some people blame the diminishing popularity of blogs on the advent of Twitter. Even Raditya Dika admitted this once on his tweet. He isn’t updating his blog as much as he did before, thanks to the addictive social networking service.

So this happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It never occured to me that some people really resent Twitter, even for clearly-defined corporate purposes. They think Twitter is time wasting, unproductive, and silly! It’s a pastime for people with no jobs. To me, it sounded like they condemn and ban the use of knives as people can get hurt or murdered by it. So how about butchers or chefs trying to make a living with knives? Do they have to leave their jobs or use a tiny razor to slice up meat? In other words, what I’m trying to say here is why people keep creating technologies while blaming their chaotic lives on them? As absurd as it may sound but it’s true and really happening. I mean, how many times do we Indonesian mass media consumers read headlines pointing at Facebook for a series of crimes like minor abductions, rapes, fraud and so on?

A Pile of Amateurish Snapshots from Pesta Blogger 2010

This is how the lobby of Rasuna Epicentrum looked early in the morning around 7 am.

The registration desk for community members, invites, and volunteers (that's me!).

The main stage drew the whole audience attention.

KIVA at Pesta Blogger 2010

Anyone can sign up for KIVA and trasfer the money via Paypal.

As I read the events list, a KIVArepresentative named Cissy Deluca was scheduled to be presenting. But when two men entered the room, I started thinking whether Cissy is one of the gentlemen’s name. It turned out that Cissy couldn’t make it and Jerry Harter – another KIVA representative – took the opportunity  to deliver the presentation and answer questions.The presentation started 4-5 minutes late only to let more people come into the room and take more seats. Compared to Mozilla, KIVA and its social entrepreneurship theme sounded ‘from another galaxy’.

The first time Jerry spoke to the audience, he asked whether it was necessary for him to use the microphone during the presentation. Considering how loud the next room had become (either another room’s speaker spoke too enthusiastically or the wall isn’t thick enough to block the noise), I strongly suggested that Jerry used the microphone throughout the session. His soft voice would certainly be lost without the assistance of microphone.