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Twitter, for the uninitiated, is this annoying little technology that asks the question, “What are you doing now?” Members of Twitter then answer that question (with “tweets”) throughout the day using 140 characters or less in each posting. Being sentient carbon-based lifeforms of varying intelligence and social acumen, these members answer the question within a spectrum of sophistication and from a multitude of platforms.

What this means, gentle reader, is that if you become a member of Twitter and start “following” people, you are apt to get all kinds of things, like “I just ate a burger” or (less frequently) “I just solved Fermat’s Theorem”. And you’ll open yourself to all this from people sitting in front of web browsers, IM interfaces, and even cell phones.

In other words, it’s just like IM, but 1000x worse. A few years ago, I told my employees that I would fire the next one I caught using IM on company time. Why? Because there’s no way to concentrate and get into flow when somebody is constantly yacking at them, asking questions, sending comments, or what have you. If it’s that important, pick up the phone! Or better yet, compile all your thoughts into *one* email and send it to me! Then wait for me to take a break (which will be in a few hours because I’m concentrating on my work) and I will answer you in complete sentences.

But Twitter is far, far worse than IM. See, instead of getting a personal message like you do on IM, what you’re seeing is a message that is being broadcast to 10, 20, 100, 1000 or more people. If you receive these on your cellphone, you experience severe disgruntlement. I’m of that generation that associates calls and messages sent to a cell phone as being more important than calls made to a land line. Getting a message on my cell phone means “this person tried me on a land line, couldn’t get me, and is now trying to get to me here–hence, important!”

To have that happen and then see that hoodoo2123 (who is a good friend, otherwise you wouldn’t be following him, right? right??) is now watching Starsky & Hutch reruns, then have it happen again (now yada54 is making cream of wheat) and then again (in which yoyobot is playing with her puppy) is really very very annoying. (Not to mention expensive, if your cell phone service charges extra to text messages.)

Some would argue that this is the kind of communication that bonds people together into a social network. Excuse me, but this is exactly the kind of thinking that people suffering from some social awkwardness syndrome really believe in. Good communication is about relevance and pragmatism. If you were at a social gathering (one in real life, I mean) and everyone just constantly spammed their immediate environment with stories and feelings and thoughts helter-skelter, it isn’t bonding. It’s annoying. Real communication is about finding out what the other person is interested in, and talking about that, and then picking up on subtle (and not-so-subtle) cues that it’s okay to keep talking about that topic or time to move on.

It reminds me of a very bright computer engineer I had the misfortune of meeting at a holiday gathering a few years ago. Very very smart. MIT smart. A few of us were talking about hiking and photography and what we’d been up to since the last time we saw each other. This guy kept interrupting our flow with random comments about things he was working on at work, none of which had any bearing on what the rest of us were talking about. We would process what he had said, ask a few questions, get more cryptic stuff, and then keep talking about our lives. He was just annoying enough that we didn’t try too hard to include him (I cop to that ) but HEY, that’s the point of social group dynamics. If I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t have to! And you don’t have to listen!

I guess from a Twitter perspective, his communication strategy made total sense–just keep talking about what it is you’re interested in, and I’ll do the same, and we’ll all go home and call that a conversation. Sheesh!

Here’s another chilling thought: using this technology as a true marketing platform. Amazon and others are already starting down this path. Reminds me of web pages crammed full of deals at airline ticket travel sites. Or the meaningless emails you get from places that list 500 rolex watches for sale.

The key here is not amplitude, it’s relevance. I want to take Hope on a trip to Scotland. I want to see airfares for Scotland. Not anything else. Sign me up for that, and I’ll be interested. Or, if I were to continue using Twitter, I’m interested in just seeing tweets on things that relate to a certain set of topics, and you can keep all the rest.

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