Twitter: Clothes Without an Emperor
October 24, 2009
Even Twitter Thought Twitter Was Stupid At First, reported Jason Kincaid from Startup School. Well, if Ev Williams and Biz Stone thought that, I was in good company.
The Twitter story is a mirror image of the story of the The Emperor’s New Clothes. People find uses (clothes) for Twitter, but the clothes are just empty outfits. The outfits march on, and the march picks up the pace, when inside leg and other elements are revealed: those measurements correspond to the API (“Huge,” said Biz).
Now, of course, there are so many outfits that it doesn’t matter that there’s nothing underneath. The outfits are the emperor, and the empire is strongly placed.
October 25, 2009 at 1:23 pm
A little confused about this post, don’t get the clothing relation with Twitter?
October 25, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Glad to hear someone else was as confused as me.
October 25, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for the question, Eric.
I see the clothing as the uses people have found for Twitter. Status updates are the jeans and t-shirt. Resumes are the business attire.
Apps are… hmm… clothing stores? Tailoring patterns?
January 17, 2010 at 6:23 pm
[...] of his descriptions of social media remind me of my own account of Twitter as clothes without an emperor. So his must be an individual voice worth [...]
January 17, 2010 at 11:49 pm
[...] not as high on Twitter as some. It seems to me like clothes without an emperor. But while there are spectators, I may as well take my place in the parade: that’s me, toward [...]