The flaw with Twitter

[almostwitty]

Twitter has often been described as a way of having a pub conversation with your friends, or of telling people what you’re up to. After its’ BBC One mainstream debut on the Jonathan Ross chatshow courtesy of Stephen Fry, I’m sure there will be many many more UK people joining the Twitter party. But there’s one huge flaw.

I happen to follow games/geek expert Aleks Krotoski’s Twitter account. And she Twittered something interesting about geek pie. However, because she doesn’t follow me (and why should she, to be fair?) I have no way of messaging her via Twitter to ask her what on earth geek pie is.

I could send a Twitter back saying “@aleksk What is geek pie?” - but given that she doesn’t follow me, the chances of her seeing that are nil. And I can’t email or direct message her direct.

So Twitter is a one-way broadcasting system unless you choose to open up your own channels. And we all know how one-way broadcasting systems tend to end up…

Update: I now know what a geek pie is.

Originally published at almost witty. You can comment here or there.