The Boulder Twitterverse

What is Twitter ? I’ve been on twitter shortly after it came online in 2006. Since I am an integral part of the new media revolution ( had the first TV network online and started live streaming TV in 1997) We ( Boulder Channel 1 team) have signed up early for every passing internet media phenomenom: friendster, myspace, face book and Twitter. Twitter is a communication or a community building tool.  That’s it.

Who are they ? Tweeps are 18-34 year olds.  55% female 45% male In Boulder they are all white, rich, educated, Liberal, office workers, house wives or students.  They sit in coffee houses, on their phones in their cars, or at work and stay connected to the twitterverse which they see as the universe. Except it isn’t. Boomers except for me don’t use twitter. Xers don’t use it either. the Yers who do represent less than 50%. In Boulder Twitter is reserved for a special group of people who, look, think and act alike. It is a closed culture.

Twitter cyber Attacks If you don’t fit into that culture ( I don’t… 65, white, short , bald, opinionated, not liberal and I have a sense of humor…not allowed on twitter.)  At least in Boulder, if you don’t fit the above mold, you will be attacked. Since I have a cable and internet talk show, write this column, have my own thoughts, take risks and question the staus quo , I am often attacked by Boulder tweeps.  I don’t answer back on twitter anymore though. I answer back on television for the larger community to see.  Boulder twitter is like the Russian mafia: a gang of thugs who want to rule the world. I intend on standing in there way.

Nonsense In the larger scheme of things Twitter does not really matter.  It is a good tool for communicating breaking news which eventually gets to the rest of us. But how important is it?  Really?  The language is so short and curt, it is not only rude, it is idiotic. People are reduced to blithering.

Boulder is so Weird Of course we have our little twitter culture here in #boulder, but other areas are completely different. There is a whole world of Hispanic Tweeps who dominate twitter nationwide. There are popular culture tweeps who make up twitter in the USA. Thye are into popular TV shows, pop music, gossip magazines…. not intelligentsia. In that sense Boulder is weird.

OK it’s gossip  Twitter is 100% gossip tot he mass world population. There are occasional pieces of good information that come out.  I use it to net cast stories like this. We use it to post news and features from Boulder channel 1. But we also use, Digg, linked in, email, Google, the internet. face book my space, keywords, meta tags, tags and categories 20 times a day by 10 different posters. We use you tube, vimeo, BC1 and finally we use the king of all communications Cable Television.  Cable is still king even if 20% of the 18-34 year olds in Boulder  (approximately 10,000 out of our 220,000) think they are the community. the truth is most people in our city have know idea who they are or what their scene and they don’t care.