Tuesday, April 21, 2009

My new Twitter-based obsession: Twistori

I've fallen in love with a new Twitter application, Twistori. It will appeal to avid readers of Postsecret and FMyLife.com, but every user's experience is different, and you have the option to control which type of statement you see. Twistori is a collection of Twitter updates with key words in them: I love, I hate, I think, I believe, I feel, or I wish. The user visits the site, clicks on whichever key words they want to read about, and Twitter updates begin to scroll across the screen.

Perhaps you're in a bad mood and you want to see what people hate. If you click on "I hate," you could see anything from, "I hate when sleep doesn't fix everything." to "Completely digging the Lolla lineup, but... oh how I hate huge crowds of drunk assholes. At least I only live 2 blocks from the 'venue.'" Or if you've just fallen in love and you want to see what others love, you could read "Watching Tom and Jerry. I love. that. cartoon." or something deeper, "I love learning shit in class. FACT: US citizens have NO constitutional right to privacy...news to me!"

The Twistori website is well-done, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing. I could definitely spend a large segment of my time reading through these groupings of updates. The only problem is that if I want to know more about a person... there is no option to direct me to his or her Twitter page. Theoretically I could remember the phrase and go type it into Twitter search, but that defeats the purpose of anonymity which made such sites (Postsecret, FMyLife, Twistori) successful. We all want to relate to someone, but if we know too much, statements are no longer generic and the connection is gone.

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