Thinking back on Twitter

There was a time in history not long ago when Twitter was new. Nowadays it so not new that it doesn't even need a "T' as a logo. Twitter updated its logo and made it just a bird. Heck, Twitter even made a pretty video about it:

 

I used to blog about Twitter all of the time. Interestingly enough, it's gone mainstream in most parts of the United States... even in portions of the world. Funny. It still hasn't really caught on in the middle of Missouri where I work. There is a committed group of people using it. There are lots of people who use it as a news and information feed. But where I work and deliver news, Facebook is so dominant.

Maybe because of my market's use of Twitter, I've evolved in the way I use it. Maybe it's because I follow 5700+ accounts. Maybe because I started too early in Twitter's history and I haven't been able to properly build lists. I don't know. But the way I use Twitter the most is through hashtag-based conversations and conversations I or someone else initialized. I don't get a chance to just scan the feed as much as I used to. I kind of miss those days. Actually... I have my old scan habits with the way I Instagram and Tumblr. I love keeping up with the people I follow and interact with photos and my Tumblr list is still small enough I can keep up with it. Lately I feel more personally connected to my IG family than my Twitter ones. And no, my market is not a heavy Instagram user just yet. But it has potential. It's young. After almost five years in the Twitter space, it's not growing rapidly for my news environment. I wish I could say better of it. Twitter was one of the first spaces I discovered online community around the world. I don't plan to quit it. But I know it's changed and I don't know if it will ever be as much of a go-to network as it is in places like New York City and Seattle. I wonder how many other people feel this way.