The first mainstream mentions of Twitter I recall hearing were so long ago and so benign that I wasn’t fazed. NPR, The New York Times, CNN … These outlets were responsible for Twitter’s emergence from “geek tool” to a “marketing tool” that was still secretly considered by most to be a geek tool, if it was considered at all.
Then one morning, I heard Twitter mentioned on the Today show. OK … Well, I guess it is a pop culture phenomenon of sorts … This isn’t so bad … I like Matt Lauer … Then a few months later Rachel Griffith’s character on the nighttime drama Brothers & Sisters (which I can not believe I just admitting to watching in a public forum) is lamenting about having to incorporate Twitter into her internet start-up’s marketing strategy. I shuddered.
But it really hit home on Oscar night, when the hosts of ABC’s “Live from the Red Carpet” started chirping uncomfortably about Twitter, encouraging viewers to “Tweet us your thoughts on Beyonce’s dress!” I found myself embarrassed for them, and a little embarrassed for myself as a purveyor of all things social media. It was then that I realized: Twitter has officially jumped the shark.
For those unfamiliar with the expression (and to paraphrase Wikipedia), “jumping the shark” is a colloquialism used by TV critics and fans to denote that point in a TV show’s history where the plot veers off into absurd story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations, in a desperate attempt to draw viewers. The phrase specifically refers to an episode from the popular 1970′s series Happy Days when Fonzie (Henry Winkler), wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket, jumps over a penned-in shark while water skiing. This was the moment for many, when Happy Days ceased to be must-see-TV.
The expression has evolved over time to encompass fads in general, and while I’m not saying that Twitter is a fad, that’s what this insipid coverage implies to me. The “Live from the Red Carpet” version of Twitter is like legwarmers or microwave brownies. It will be “cool” for about two weeks, until people start to realize they don’t really need it and promptly abandon their accounts.
Computerworld blogger Mike Elgan echoes that sentiment in his post “The Six Stages of Twitter Media Coverage Hell.” In it, he suggests that the media will soon move from the trend of over-hyping Twitter, to hyper-criticism of Twitter, soon to return to ignoring the service altogether. And that’s just fine with me. Because the last thing Twitter needs is more users clogging up the Tweetstream with banal chatter about Katie Holmes’ new haircut (ok, I’m sort of interested in that, but you catch my drift).
Not to be a buzzkill, but in my opinion, Twitter is at its best as a tool for breaking news tool, or a gauge of public sentiment revolving around more serious issues – current events, industry trends, consumer and B-2-B products. So I say let’s return Twitter to the hands of the people who are comfortable with it, where it belongs. We’ll leave the rest to MySpace.
UPDATE (4/8/09): Watch Jon Stewart’s rant on Twitter from last night’s Daily Show.