Tonight at dinner, it was Friendly's because our children in their hip hop class all HAD to go out together (I loved it, for reals) for dinner since it was the last class, my friend Mel, who played drums in punk bands in Boston in the late 80s early 90s (that's how much cooler she is than you and me), sits across from me and tells me all about seeing "what's his name Biz, Biz Stone, on Fresh Air." She was inspired to sign up to Twitter because of @biz's great ease with Linda and the great poise he displayed in answering some of the most heady questions leveled at a man in quite some time - "Egypt? Revolution? and all you need is one cell phone?" But here's the sticky wicker, she got scared signing up.
The UI there IS confusing. It has to be, doesn't it? There's been so much growth in Twitter, it all must be covered there. Some of that copy seems left over from the twttr.com days. I remember them, because that's when I signed up. But it's confusing because there are the layers of Twitter's growth, the simplicity coupled with the DM settings, the email notification settings, the bio, the timeline option. I thought this thing was easy to use and to understand?
I tried to help her, but it's been years since I've signed up for Twitter. I certainly evangelize the service, but I haven't held anyone's hand as they danced through the sign up. If all this is confusing to you, what I'm saying, Doug Bowman, is that it is not what is said on Twitter that is confusing, it is getting people to join the conversation in the first place. There must be a way to make it easier to sign up. Design some way to let people get into Twitter without fear, without the unknown rearing its ugly head down on them and eating up all their available TXT MSGs for the month.
To my friend Mel I suggested, as a matter of course, that she just stick to following a few real friends and few non-real friends and to follow them all via SMS notifications. I also suggested she tweet from the SMS, like the command bunker in Egypt, vs any other Twitter client in the Broadcast Booth. Oh, wait. That's the from that new Bright Eyes record. My bad.
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