A no-picture post(ulation)

Twitter. Until today I mocked “them” fervently… foolish contributors to an instant society. And then, lamely, I sucumbed. Certainly an interesting thought process to this point though – but despite having… whatever, bought the t-shirt or something, I’m still not convinced of the fit (so-to-speak).

Here’s the thing. What degree of effort is required to exist in this modern space – this blogo-twitto-mega-one-machine-o-sphere? Let’s say I invest (precious) hours of effort into a post, or write some incredible twitter-haiku or something, only for it never to be read because in the same instant that I commit my masterpiece, 100 other people write utter nonsense and my genius is lost forever onto the lonely and seldom read page 2. I ask, would the gamble and time investment have been worth the potential win? I’m 30, and life is definitely catching up with me. I barely find time to shave, and so unless I’m gonna tweet with my left-hand, do I really, actually have time for anything which may just… not be read? Sure – same can really be said of blogs and facebooking and this and that. So does the fact that I eventually adopted those “necessities” imply that this is all just a matter of time? Perhaps I’m just whispering against thunder? Arguing for the sake of it?

A week or two ago, RAMP Group ran the Net Prophet conference, and everyone witnessed the gee-whiz-wow of all this tech in action on twitter walls and what not. Again, despite being technically interesting, it struck me that 15 minutes of fame is practically 15 seconds of fame nowadays, and a simple act of blinking exposes one to the risk of somehow missing TheNextBigThing which everyone but blinker will be talking about (which will of course further cement blinker’s pending exit from TheRealAndPresentWorld). Oh the peril!

Time will tell, obviously, but some questions remain… what is the actual (and I mean actual) return-on-investment of all this new-fangled online reputation building. Is it actually sustainable over the long term, when life takes the form of families, and the demands of 1st Life start crowding out the disposable time. And if it’s work time we’re using, what does it actually cost our businesses, and even if done in the name of business, does that cost actually yield viable and profitable returns?

I suspect I’m just overdoing it, but even 140 characters seems ambitious! I guess law-of-odds will probably find me becoming a compulsive twittevangelist (hereby patented!) Hmmm…