“I say Twitter is to the digital communications revolution what Jackson Pollock is to nonrepresentational art or John Cage is to experimental music: an idea taken to such an extreme that it’s no longer remotely enjoyable outside of the fact of the weirdness of the idea itself. Facebook departs from the form (and by extension, the functionality) of its progenitors (ie, conversation, written correspondance, etc) in the same way that cubism departs from the form and function of realist painting. Both are controversial in their unconventionality, but the fact is that Facebook and cubism do something in and of themselves. They’re new ways of accomplishing recognizable goals — those goals being, respectively, facilitating interpersonal communication and realizing a certain self-encapsulated vision of the world on canvas. Cubism may strike you as a bit of a waste of artistic talent, and Facebook may make your skin crawl (it seems to for most of us), but at least you can see the appeal.”

I can fully relate to his view of Twitter and company as a utility specialized to the point of irrelevance/impotent self-justification. It exists the same way for me. But, it is not so for everyone.

The appeal of Twitter and like “what are you doing now” apps is only realized when the user shares a known community with other users. Benji, and I, are parts of no such community. Thus, Twitter use seems pretty worthless to us and to the majority of the the world that falls into the later camps of the technology adoption lifecycle. It seems neither enjoyable, nor useful. But when everyone you know uses it, when it passes the “tipping point” as it were, it then becomes a substancial utility. Its devotees update from their cellphones via SMS with a regularity we reserve for scratching our heads.

For example: Have a interesting idea waiting in line to buy milk: twitter it. Many of your friends and colleagues, like devoted to SMS’ing every ten minutes, might respond to that idea by the time you’ve swiped your card.

It’s at its best when used to broadcast moments in our consciousness, whether “thinking about seeing Sunshine” or “I just had x idea about a new way to do y”. The interesting part of it is that in the act of twittering, these moments are interjected into others consciousness, and responses are received at a delay of mere minutes, wherever one is. See, the devetees of twittering are also devotees to checking their friends’ twitters.

Again, I’ve not been able to use it in this way because a.) I can’t afford that kind of data plan for my mobile b.) none of my friends can either, so c.) none of my friends use SMS/Twitter. But for the technorati of the west coast, it has developed into a legitimately distinct mode of communication.

But as far as Benji and my direct experience goes, it seems informational wankery like Pollock’s splatterings surely did to many before his “tipping point.” And heck, who can afford to push that much data?