Twitter doesn’t allow you to sub-divide messages streams yet, no — though actually I think that simplicity is one of its strengths. It’s really a matter of what people choose to do with it, and you don’t have to watch everyone’s stream of tweets. 37signals use it in the work context you describe, but groups of friends and family use it precisely for that disposable status information you loathe.

I can see Twitter replacing those stupid phone calls, “Hi, I’m on the train and will be home in 10 minutes.” Though that said, why people just can’t wait 10 minutes until they are home… perhaps that’s exactly why Twitter works. People do want to update their loved ones with their status immediately.

Not targetted at Stil! Just general questions. Replace “you” with “one” where applicable.

I’ve tried it and in general I don’t want to know.

“At the bar until 9:15″

“Saw a dog wearing a hat on Smith St”

“Breathed out. Breathed in again”

Do you say everything you think? Who’s pausing to write this stuff down? And why would you care that anyone cares?

That’s not twitter’s fault of course. I’ve just got to make sure I only follow people with a life.

If everyone in my project groups at work all indicated what task they were working on and what the key issue/problem in front of them *right now* was then that’d be cool.

Perhaps some sort of keywording or tagging of a twitter post (and filtering) would help those of us who actively avoid kitchen-sink chatter and how’re-you-doin’s?

Or is that already in there and I haven”t found it?

I do wonder what we will be using in 5, let alone 10 years time though!

@Anastasia: In this piece I focused on the positives of Twitter. I’ll come back to the negatives of Facebook another time. But you’re right about one key point: Twitter is all about what the user wants to do, while Facebook is all about what the advertiser wants to do, i.e. maximise the time you spend on the site.

It’s in Facebook’s interest to waste as much of you time as possible — at least in the short term. Long-term, that loses out. But long-term, who cares? It’s that grow-fast, cash-out strategy for the investors’ gain deal again.

@jason: There is much goodness in that piece you link to, thank you. I daresay I’ll riff of that in a future post.