Taking Back Twitter

I know I know I know.

I promised not to write any more posts about Twitter. But, one of the things I like to do on this blog, besides breaking promises, is talk about how new media is evolving. And Twitter, well, it’s kind of the evolutionary story of the year, or at least the month, so I thought it was worth talking about.

It’s finally happening. Twitter is being taken over by celebrities, the media won’t shut up about it, and the tech-geek early adopter community, who have been on Twitter since the beginning, are freaking out.

“Twitter’s going to jump the shark!”, “Twitter’s dead”, and “It’s game over!”, are just a few of the rumblings I’ve seen pass through my stream in the past few days. Some are being downright possessive about it, almost violated at the thought that that Kutcher guy or ol’ what’s her face Winfrey are going to somehow infringe on their ability to use the tool.

So, can we just stop this then?

I am the first one to admit, I love Twitter. That’s probably pretty obvious to most of you. I’m on it often and it’s been a source of close friendships, fun social times, and new business for me. I find it a very valuable addition to my social and work lives. I’m a fan, and I’m not planning to change that any time soon.

Twitter is changing, as we knew it would. Seriously, it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world caught on. But the way people use Twitter does not have to change. The reason is simple.

If you are in your early late thirties like I am, you probably remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, where you would read to a certain point in the book, then have to make a decision about where you wanted the story to go. You’d flip to the page of your choice, and continue reading. It was different every time. I loved those books. Never got bored of them.

Twitter is like that – it’s a “choose your own adventure” tool. What I mean is, even though Oprah and Ashton Kutcher and P. Diddy are making tons of noise on Twitter, even though millions and millions of people are following them and talking about them and so on, the fact is, YOU get to choose how you use the tool. YOU get to choose who you follow. YOU get to choose who you talk to, and what you talk about. If you want to follow 50 people, follow 50 people. If you don’t want to follow celebrities, just don’t follow them. If you want to unfollow someone because all they do is follow celebrities, then geez. Just unfollow them.

Choose your own adventure in this space. Nobody’s telling you that you can’t.

I leave you with the quote of the day, for anyone who thinks that they can make a million bucks shilling advice about social media tools. This is a tweet from my friend Bob Goyetche, and is reprinted with his permission:

RT @bobgoyetche: Today, the legions of Oprah-ites join Twitter – your twitter “expertise” = soon to be as valuable as teaching someone to browse the web.

But we all KNEW this day would come, didn’t we?