Thread by @davekarpf

July 07, @pomeranian99’s first monthly column, provides a nice window into Twitter’s early niche.

“The true value of Twitter—and the similarly mundane Dodgeball, a tool for reporting your real-time location to friends—is cumulative. The power is in (...)” (1/x)
#wiredarchive

“(...)the surprising effects that come from receiving thousands of pings from your posse. And this, as it runs out, suggests where the Web is heading.”

A few things stand out for me in this column:
(1) reminder that Twitter was launched and gained early traction pre-iPhone. 2/x

We had plenty of web-enabled cell phones before the iPhone. By the app-based interface that has become second nature to us did not exist in the internet of ‘07.
(3/x)

(2) interesting that Thompson groups Twitter with Dodgeball (which was later became Foursquare).

Today Foursquare is basically a footnote in Internet history, a reminder that we’re suckers for gamification, but eventually get bored and move on. (4/x)

Twitter, on the other hand, flourished *specifically because* it strayed from the niche Thompson is describing.

Twitter is no longer about “pinging your posse.” WhatsApp and Snapchat are far better in that role. So is Facebook.

Twitter’s key feature is unidirectional ties 5/x

..,By that, I mean you *follow* people on twitter, while you *friend* then on Facebook.

That eventually becomes Twitter’s bread-and-butter use case. You can curate your media stream with twitter. You can follow reporters, celebrities, comedians, etc. (6/x)

(3) last, and most important, point: *Twitter circa 07 has not yet developed this niche.* (It probably COULDNT, until we got mass adoption of smartphones.)

The 2007 column isn’t so much predicting the future as it is revealing and explaining the unstable present.
(7/x)

And that’s probably all that good tech journalism can ever really do.
(Fin)