“It’s in the process of talking about the small things, the ordinary… that people bond.”
Dom Sagolla (@dom) provides a fascinating insider view of how Twitter went from idea to product in his article, “How Twitter was Born“.
Dom’s article got me thinking back to when I first started using Twitter two years ago.
I quickly saw that Twitter had potential to be special. The value I saw: Twitter enabled people to bond with each other, to develop even stronger and more powerful connections.
A Show About Nothing
People ask me all the time: what’s the point of Twitter? Why should I care about what people are saying? My reply:
“Remember the TV show Seinfeld? It was a show about what? A show about nothing. Those characters talked. A lot. About nothing. And those characters bonded with each other! It’s in the process of talking about the small things, the ordinary, and not the big things, that people bond.”
And that’s what’s happening on Twitter. It is the most powerful tool I’ve seen for creating bonds between people.
A Moment of Recognition
Dom talks about his first substantive message #38, a moment of recognition: “Oh this is going to be addictive”.
My own similar moment of recognition came when I was at the Charles River Ventures CEO Summit April 2007, and Twitter founder @Ev was sitting nearby. I found myself twittering about the founder of Twitter.
Pretty cool. But even cooler is the way Twitter has enabled me to form powerful and lasting connections with so many exceptional people.
And hey, I’d like to follow YOU on Twitter. Let’s connect, I’m @davideckoff.
What’s your take? What makes Twitter special for you?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This freakin ROCKS!!!
The Best description YET!
Why didn’t we include this in the
Twitter Revolution book?!
http://TwitterRevolution.com
We’ll have to get this on the blog!
Permission to re-publish w/ all credits to you on
http://TwitterHandbook.com ?
@CoachDeb
@CoachDeb, thanks for the enthusiastic comment!
If you’d like to publish an excerpt with a credit to me and a link back to the the original post, I think that would be great! Is that good with you?
Look forward to meeting you at SXSW.
Great! I fist visited the Twitter site about 2 years ago and I thought “this thing is going to be huge”. I also saw the crack-like addiction possibilities so I decided not to become a user until last year.