Why I Love Twitter

When it comes to embracing innovation, I have been all over the map during the last decade or so.  The research on the diffusion of innovation places adopters into one of five categories based on the order in which they eventually adopt an innovation.

• Innovators - the first 2.5%
• Early Adopters - the next 13.5%
• Early Majority - the next 34%
• Late Majority - the next 34%
• Laggards - and the last 16%

Based on just those in my age group (people born in the 1970's), here is my best guess on where I fell in terms of some technology innovations of the last 20 years:

• Email - Early Adopter
• Cell Phone - Late Majority
• Smart Phone - Early Majority
• DVD Player - Early Adopter
• Creating Webpages - Early Adopter (started first one in 1998)
• HD TV - Early Majority
• Google Apps - Early Majority
• iPod - Early Majority
• Facebook - Early Adopter, then left for a while, Early Majority the second time around
• Tablet Computer - TBD
• Twitter - Early Adopter

My delays in adopting new technologies was usually due to issues of low awareness (Google apps), lack of funding (tablet computer), or a stubborn refusal to get behind the "new thing" (cell phone).  I also know some people are very busy and the idea of adding and learning something new does not appeal to them (this is where I am at with Pinterist).

The reason I love Twitter is that it combines all of the best of my interests in one place.  I love sports, politics, news, interesting websites, blogs, friends, general commentary, entertainment, live events, and humor.  Twitter has made it possible to enjoy all of these things in one stream of information.  I am able to follow my favorite sports reporters, sports commentators, blogs, authors, political reporters, political commentators, news sites, and personalities.  Whenever I have time for Twitter (usually first thing in the morning, watching TV at night, and short moments throughout the day) I am updated on all the things that interest me most.

I use to get up each morning and read 8-10 websites as though they were my morning paper.  Now, Twitter does that for me.  I just scroll through my feed and know all I want from posts and article links about news, politics, sports, and entertainment.  Twitter is also amazing at breaking news.  When Osama Bin Laden was killed, I first learned about it on Twitter as the news was happening.  When something huge happens in the political or sporting worlds, Twitter always has it first.

The best feature of Twitter is live events.  Going back and forth between reading your Twitter feed and watching something happen on television elevates the overall experience.  For sporting events, political debates, election nights, major breaking news events, and weather events, Twitter enhances the moment by providing real time information, interesting facts, fact checks, immediate commentary, and some outstanding humor.  As a sports fan, the people I follow on Twitter alert me in real time to when a nationally televised game is headed towards a close finish or when something historic is about to happen like a perfect game in baseball. I no longer have the time to follow sports as closely as I use to, but Twitter has made it so I have rarely missed a major sports moment over the last 3 years.

My hunch is that Twitter is here to stay and than many more people will eventually find their way to this remarkable platform.  I do not judge those who show resistance, because I have been there and will be there again (Pinterist).  My reality is that if something is around to stay, I find my way there eventually and end up wondering what took me so long and how did I ever live without it.