There are a great many Twitter Super-Experts on the young web service who have it all figured out. They tend to interrupt conversations or take it upon themselves to right the wrongs here and there of those uneducated fools who would dare to Tweet something that is, just quite simply, unacceptable for Twitter.

Not wanting to miss out on the Grand Epiphany that is Twitter I searched the great web temple archives for the phrase, “Twitter is about” and “Twitter is all about” in the hope that I too would Get It. But the search resulted in many tweets that went something like, “I’m just trying to figure out what twitter is about.” Not very useful to us: the unwashed.

So I decided to do a search on “Twitter is not about”, thinking if one could only seek out what a thing is not then, by deduction, he shall know what a thing is. Holmes would be proud.

That search uncovered, according to the Twitter Sages, what Twitter is NOT about:

  • Twitter is not about selling stuff
  • Twitter is not about the individual
  • Twitter is not about Edgar Allan Poe
  • Twitter is not about being followed and not following back
  • Twitter is not about automatic updates
  • Twitter is not about paying for Twitter
  • Twitter is not about purposeful, systematic Tweets
  • Twitter is not about spam
  • Twitter is not about AllTop

Ok, so now we know what Twitter is not about. Not very satisfying, really. It doesn’t tell us a thing about what Twitter is about. Where oh where can one find the light?!

However, hidden deeply within the Tweets I studies were a few cryptic hints that might help us unravel this great mystery. Here they are for your perusal. See if you can deduce anything from them. Note, they are written in purely raw form. I chose not to try and interpret thus polluting the awesome wisdom within:

  • CON-VER-SA-TION!
  • POOL OF MINDS
  • the peeeepooolllllll!!!!!

Now, as I ponder these clues hoping that my mind would produce that delicious fruit known as Understanding, it has occured to me that the Sages of Twitter are trying to say something. Let me take a stab at just what it might be:

Twitter is about people, not technology. It’s about communication with your fellow human, not marketing at them. It’s about the great social blah blah blah… 

Oh just stop it!

How can a one year old technology website have spawned so many pontificators, social media mavens, and Internet Marketing Experts; all of them vying to explain to us just what this nascent technology “is all about?”

One thing is for sure, Twitter had better be about making a profit for its stakeholders, and soon, or Twitter will be about a great experiment that didn’t work.