[LINK] Using Twitter...

[Jon Seymour]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 4:01 PM, Birch, Jim <Jim.Birch at dhhs.tas.gov.au> wrote:
> Stilgherrian wrote:
>>The name Twitter is inspired, as it really is akin to bird call. But
> even a songbird's song is not "all show".

>
> Bird songs are basically fitness displays.  The bird is demonstrating
> that, by virtue of its superior genes, it can spend whole the day
> foraging and still waste lots of time and energy carefully producing the
> exact sounds that turn on members of the opposite sex in it's species.
> "I'm hot!"  Sexual selection is largely driven by female mate choice
> which is why males typically have the best songs and plumage.

I think the same applies to Twitter - tweeters demonstrate they can
spend the entire day tweeting and not get fired which demonstrates an
impressive ability to do many things at once or equally impressive
ability of staying employed while getting nothing useful done.

I am exactly sure what mate choice has to do with Twitter but Stil,
for example, does have pretty good tweets and an impressive array of
followers.

The analogy isn't perfect however - for the life of me, I can't think
what the animal kingdom equivalent of a #trendfist is.

jon.