Buhner Dot Com Est. 2000, which is like 1947 in Internet years.

Why I love Twitter

Short answer: because most of my "friends" from Facebook aren't on it.

Longer answer: Twitter still has a freshness to it that Facebook a while back when it because a Zynga gaming society. Not everyone who owns a computer is on it, but there are a good chunk of people who are. I can use it from my iPhone just as easily as I can from a desktop machine, and it's pretty damned easy to make new friends without having to feel like you're exposing your deepest darkest secrets like your pictures from a 6th grade class trip. There really isn't the "commitment" involved that Facebook forces on you; you can follow someone who seems cool solely for that reason and never interact with them, and the same goes in return.

Basically, Twitter is a giant chat room where you control who you want to hear.

But if you want a specific example of why I love Twitter, a little story. I follow Alyssa Milano on Twitter (@Alyssa_Milano) as it's just something you do when you've had a crush on someone for two and a half decades. Anyway, Alyssa (who is an avid Tweeter) had some concern that her account had been hacked because her account had posted a message she didn't post herself:

So... Just found a rt that I didn't send. If you see anything suspicious coming from my account, please let me know.

"rt" here stands for "retweet", which is the quick and simple way to take a message someone has posted and send it to your followers while giving credit to the person who originally posted the message. It used to be simple - you clicked the "retweet" button and the message was sent from your account with a "RT" in front and the person's Twitter handle and their message. Like much of Twitter, it was meant to be short and simple - putting a "D" in front of a person's Twitter handle sent them a private message for example - but it became easy to manipulate. People could "edit" the quote before retweeting it, so there was no stopping someone from forging a retweet to imply that someone else could say whatever the forger wanted. Twitter would later change the "retweet" system to keep people from editing the tweets, but the old system still works.

Anyway, I read that and see that Alyssa's already changed her password and without having seen the retweet that has Alyssa concerned, my first thought is the forged retweet. Did she see someone forging a retweet and just think quick "hey, I didn't write that tweet - did someone hack my account?" So I send her a message, trying to be funny, and figuring that she's not going to see it (Alyssa's got over 960k followers). It's probably the same type of message that I would have sent to one of my friends:

@Alyssa_Milano are you sure it wasn't a forge? It's easy to forge a retweet. RT @Alyssa_Milano: I love @MrWorkrate because he's hot.

Obviously she never said that (well, obviously kind of reflects a little negatively on me) but it was meant to be funny. I laughed. Then I went on with my day. Three minutes later, this pops onto my timeline:

@MrWorkrate Hahaha! No... They used the button...

Alyssa Milano - Alyssa Milano with a Twitter following larger than the population of Detroit - Alyssa Milano whom I've had a crush on since I was 12 years old - talked to me. Not only that, but she laughed at something I said. It was one of the highlights of my geek life. It doesn't compare to real-life stuff like getting married and kids and all that, but from an online perspective few things (if any) have topped that.

And that's one of the real reasons I love Twitter - it's that everyone is operating at the same level. Celebrities, politicians, adult film stars, IT geeks, crazed shut-ins... they're all there, and they all can be heard if you want to listen. There are a decent amount of celebrities on Twitter, and while many of them elect to use it as a sort of blog (not following anyone, no interaction) and have some intern or assistant actually running it, there are a few (like Alyssa) who use it just like everyone else and remind you that they're still people just like you.

And sometimes they talk to you. And it makes your day.