Soap operation

I've been trying for a while to work out just what it is that's so great about Facebook, Twitter et al; these totally addictive sites that have millions of people logging in at all times of the day.

I could feel that there is a big idea particularly behind Twitter but couldn't work it out. But it's only becoming clear to me what that idea is now.

It's a 24-hour a day reality show. But one where you know all of the actors.

Hook up to Twitter, subscribe to your friends' feeds, enable your mobile phone for updates. Suddenly you've got a rolling news service, a constant feed of information and entertainment, from trivial activity reports to profound innermost thoughts, all delivered to your phone screen.

It's better than any movie or 24-hour reality show there is. Because you get to choose the characters, who's included in the stories, and you personally know everybody in the cast. With the added advantage that you don't need to sit in front of the TV to keep up with it.

Download Flock to your computer and the story gets even better. Flock is just another web browser like Safari or Firefox, but with a few added features; one of which is a feed bar constantly sucking information from all of your contacts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and a bunch of other sites. You can literally sit in front of your computer screen watching the news constantly come in: friends' status updates, contacts' Twitter reports, friends' new videos, new photos... It's an amazing sight. Like the CNN News Ticker, but with all the stories involving people you're connected to personally.

It's much more entertaining than watching the telly.

Blogged with the Flock Browser