Twitter by Machiavelli

Imagine if astute political observer and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli parachuted back into our world to see all the strange new media specimens of Planet Earth twittering away during their idle moments. How would he react? What would he conclude?  You may recall that we once tackled this important question in the context of email , but now we have a more curious – perhaps innocent but possibly more sinister – activity known as twittering.  Such activity has re-energized social networking, reasserted (once again) the viral hegemony of A-listers like Robert Scoble, provided yet another sandlot for migratory marketers, and even managed to get a guy out of jail on the power of a single word (“arrested”).

Anyway, I recklessly bumped into Niccolo on the street while we were both twittering about, well, going across the street. We decided to sit down over Italian roast and biscotti to discuss his acute observations. Most importantly, he had started to carefully analyze and “segment” all the curious personality types and behaviors emerging from Twitter land. I couldn't resist sharing his thoughts.  Please contribute your own categories.  Your contributions will be credited in the final version.

- Niccola (channeled through Pete Blackshaw)

 

Comments

[Kevin Dugan]

This reminds me of my "What would Jesus Twitter?" post a year or so back. Well, actually, this approach might yield more valuable insights than an attempt at humor.

Think of the town crier from back in the day. What if this person had the ability to project their voice anywhere at anytime and his exclamations were permanent record?

Cultural anthropologists and historians would love to have a running record of this information.

Will noodle some categories. Fun experiment.