Thinking back to when AOL instant messenger was fresh, or when I had an active Blackplanet page, I’m wondering how we will remember the era of the peak of popularity among the big social networking sites that changed the way we communicate with each other. It seems that overnight, Twitter was inducted into the ranks of Facebook, or the revolutionary Myspace (which is now a thing of the past to anyone over the age of 16 in my personal opinion).

Twitter, is a site that allows users to communicate by constantly updating their status based on the question “what are you doing?” It has recently captured mainstream attention as high profile stars such as P. Diddy and Oprah have signed on to keep us updated.

I first became familiar with Twitter back in October 2008 when the story about the false attack of Ashley Todd by an overenthusiastic Obama supporter. The story kept stating, that not only was the story of her attacker very implausible, but that she managed to update Twitter the whole time. I wasn’t interested enough to look into what Twitter actually was, and even less curiosity on how I could get involved. Of course time spreads, and like and up-and-coming underground musician thrust into superstardom, twitter appeared to me to be an overnight success story.

All of a sudden all of my closest friends swear by it, and have managed to pull me into the hype. I was reluctant failing to see the value in Twitter vs. that of a Facebook status, but eventually I came to appreciate it (I say this as though it’s all in retrospect but this was definitely less than two weeks ago). Eventually Twitter will loose it’s popularity and edge, become commercial and attract an unattractive crowd, but until that day I will enjoy it for what it is and anticipate the next “hot” thing.
—Jazmyne Young