Jeremy has responded to my post regarding the use of Twitter for Conversations.  It seems I need to clarify things a bit further, so let’s get down to business.

Jeremy seems to go off on what I’d call a tangent (although apparently he deems as merely layers in the conversation) with his post.

my concern is that (1) he misunderstands my original point, and (2) he underplays the significance of what’s going on.

Later on, he states what I figure is the best summary of his point:

Twitter is opening our eyes to a new need people have. It’s one thing to say they are using a bad tool to meet the need; it’s another thing entirely to say that people somehow shouldn’t have this need, or that they should meet the need via available tools when they’re clearly not using them.

I have not, on any medium, ever argued that there is a need going unfulfilled by the proper tool, nor have I ever argued that people should not have this need.  That’s just insane, and border-line insulting of my intelligence.  Jeremy and I somewhat straightened this out over IM.  His primary concern seemed to be that I never explicitly articulated this point, therefore I was missing it in his opinion.  As I brought to his attention, there are many things that I have never stated, however it does not make them untrue.

Don’t worry folks, I hereby proclaim that gravity exists.  You can all rest easy now.

As well, to clear the water on some other points:

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Twitter for short conversations / floating quick ideas doesn’t really bother me, so long as they’re moved off to another medium once it becomes obvious that there’s too much to be said on Twitter.  As an example:

Bubba: Anyone heard of a bug with IE6 doubling margins?

Gump: @Bubba Yeah, it’s a known bug, you can get around it by putting display: inline on the element

Then if Bubba needs to know more, hit Gump up over IM/Email.

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What does bother me is, given no previous conversation, “@soandso What would you like for dinner?”

This is when IM, eMail, SMS would be better used, and where the ego-inflation really comes in.  I’m sorry, I don’t care who you are, this is too much.

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As Jeremy admitted, he knew he’d provoke a response out of me, and that’s all well and good.  We’re friends, so we do that to each other.  Obviously he’s free to use the service how he sees fit, and if I don’t agree with it, I can always unfollow him as I’ve done with other individuals.