Pez’s Eyes

“Turn your darn messengers off when you do your work” – My mom

After whatever you were up to, you come back home, and try to relax for a moment. So you find yourself a way in for the ‘momentary paradise’ by playing your favorite video games, chatting with friends, or even surfing Facebook – things that keep you psyched. No doubt they keep you all energetic, but they also stimulate some magical hormones in your parents that makes them to have a rush of desire to whoop you with their shoes and keep you back on task. In the end, having a huge shoe mark on you face, you get to ‘things that you are supposed to be doing’, having no concentration at all but thinking about ‘the momentary paradise’ you are in need of.

Tweet tweet. If you are desperately in need of a break, or some socializing, and you are put under the ‘ultimate authority’, follow this gorgeous sound, and it will lead you through the wardrobe into the “Narnia”, or the “paradise” that you desire.

Twitter – a compact combination of pure brilliance that had started a whole new generation of ‘messenger’ – had set its first step towards the world’s audience, and is advancing incredibly fast. It first started off as a web communication base, whereas major messengers such as MSN and Skype had separate application that runs in various operating systems. It is evidently closer to being a ‘notice board’ than a ‘messenger’. People logged in, posted whatever they wanted to say, then coming back for any responses, or even catching up with some interesting things within the community. It needed to be quick and face-to-face conversation to be a messenger, in order to be considered a ‘messenger’.

Basically, Twitter is a free, and somewhat restricted community for everyone who is willing to open themselves up to the world. Each accounts are given a page just like facebook, and gets to decorate the page, while elaborating and introducing yourself. You ‘follow’ or add people in different networks to create your own, so that the communication efficiency is totally up to the individuals.

Other than being such an efficient community connector, Twitter serves the individuals well enough on the hands of being a ‘messenger’. The users get to have 140 characters each to speak, and responses are loaded in the scales of minutes. If one greedy person decides to bomb the communication link, the user gets banned from having the rights to speak at all.

The system of Twitter not only gives huge amount of freedom for the individuals who wish to speak, but also provides an environment where everyone’s voice is heard.

“They’re Koreans. They can’t even wait for their fish to be cooked” – Click the Movie

Hard to be proud of this thing, but it is very true characteristic that reflects many of Koreans, and how they deal with their situation. So, when I – a stereotypical Korean teenager – came to know about Twitter, I thought it was just a fresh idea, but not much of a ‘boom’.

But, just like how you get used to the sauna temperature, the more I got closer to Twitter, the more I used it, and the more I liked it.

As a Korean computer maniac, and a game reviewer wannabe, I think Twitter’s worth more than a messenger, but a great game, for the following  twittastic reasons.

First of all, because of its convenience brought to you by having the characteristics of a ‘notice board’, using Twitter makes you into a more efficient being in the 21st century. Basically, you get to wield the power to work for your boss, and talk to your friends, or even the world at the same time: now that’s what the 21st century is all about.

On the other hand, MSN and Skype may be more colorful, fast and all, but every time you receive a message, they start hopping, or blinking like mad, doing whatever it takes for you to take a look at the darn message. This will not only distract you from whatever you are doing at a major scale, but also will worsen the situation for both your ‘work’ or ‘jobs, and your social relationships. Why choose to lose 2 cookies for 1 colorful cookie?

Secondly, Twitter is wide open, and will be open for the future at any time. Take a look at MSN, where you add certain contacts, and speak to people you wish to with whatever topic you have to share. The conversation continues, until it hits a wall, and you just stop talking, proceeding to the next person or even logging off, so on and so forth. Some of the avid MSN supporters – not that I’m an anti MSN person – might argue that such sequence of events is what exactly messengers are born for. Well, Twitter was not born from the same, old moulds that MSN was born from, and will never form into one.

Unlike how closed, and private MSN was, limiting the opinions to only 2 people or several more at a time, Twitter is more of a linked phone, where everyone, despite their gender and age, hears your voice, and respond. This not only helps many people around the world build bonds between each other, but also enables the conversation of hundreds of people to proceed from topic to another from giving hands to people, to sharing a funny story. If I was given a choice between a linear room with 1:1 chatting chamber, and a round table with many people sitting on the edges, I’d go for the round table.

I was even a frog in the well before I met Twitter, and became familiar with it. I thought messenger had to be just like it always is.

Now, if you think you are among those frogs in a big, deep well, why don’t you give yourself a chance to spring out of the well for once, and have a seat reserved in the ‘round table’? Give your ‘blue-man’, and ‘the big S’ a break. The only thing you need is your favorite browser, and confidence.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing you there!

Photo Credits to shashchatter, Señor Maniac, juque, Stacina @ Flickr