Anything you “Tweet” can & will be used against you!

The Library of Congress announced this week that it will archive the billions of tweets published since Twitter launched in March 2006“. CNN on Twitter Library

Interesting piece of new, right? However, as always, there are two sides of each coin and in order to be able to weigh the outcomes of such a decision, we must lay out the facts and balance them accordingly.

So, here are my two cents…

Is archiving tweets a good thing?

Library of Congress, Jefferson Building by Michael Casey

Library of Congress, Jefferson Building by Michael Casey

One the positive side, this move ultimately means that future generations will have an unprecedented amount of firsthand data (in 140-character bites) about what every Twitter user from every corner of the world was doing, thinking and feeling at every moment starting 2006.

On the other hand, this also means that every silly, emotionally-charged, anger-based, drunken-caused or fear-fueled tweet, that every Twitter user from every corner of the world might have regrettably tweeted since 2006, will be there for future generations to feed on and potential employers or even partners to abuse!

5 Top Reasons Why Twitter is Not Very Popular with Teens!

Is Twitter simply too “dull” for teens to sign up to and use? What are the reasons for the rather low number of teen Twitter users? Would it be wise for Twitter to focus advertising in a way that targets teens? What benefits would teens gain from regularly using Twitter?

A few days ago, through my usual morning research of the latest web news and social bookmarking sites I use, I stumbled upon a very interesting article about teens and their very low percentage of Twitter usage. That fact made me wonder: Why are teens avoiding Twitter?

Quantcast: Twitter.com's teen users are the lowest category (July 09)

Quantcast: Notice Twitter.com's teen index is the lowest (July 09)

Here is my analysis…

5 top reasons why Twitter is not very popular with teens:

  1. Lack of Privacy: As you all know, every single word you type and tweet to your followers could be easily tracked back to you! Twitter is a fully open network in which almost anyone can see your updates! I don’t think teens appreciate that kind of lack of privacy especially in that age in which they rebel against their elders, parents and even siblings!
  2. Dull Platform: Twitter offers different content sharing services that allow its users to share pictures, music, documents and so on. In addition to that, there are many Twitter based games designed for Twitter users such as Mafia Wars and others. Why then is Twitter still not that popular amongst teens? The “tweets” are my main guess. I think the fact that you need to type in words whatever it is you want to share with links rather than graphics and the lack of ability to fully interact with others through their profiles and yours makes Twitter a bit too dull for teens.
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