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August 12, 2008
twitter: The Ham Radio (two way radio) of Today
The more I use twitter, the more I feel twitter is becoming the two-way radio of the Internet. Comparing twitter to a two-way radio may seem like a strange comparison, but given my personal history of using a 2-way radio to communicate with others, to me it seems like a very logical conclusion.
Back when I was 11 years old, CB radio gave me my first chance to define myself with a social identity. Back then I was known as “Wildcat” and “Tranquility Base.” Most of the time when my CB radio was on, all I ever heard sounded like noise and idle chatter. When I started out on CB, I did so without knowing anyone on any of the CB channels. I eventually got to know the “on-air” personalities of some of the people in my neighborhood and I had a chance to have a conversation just about whenever I needed one. The conversations were never deep but were always a good way to fill time with idle chit chat.
Being 11 is hard for a lot of people and it was a hard year for me. Except for CB radio, I was pretty much alone that year. Radio quickly became my outlet to communicate with people outside of family and a few close friends. A year and half later my world expanded when I finally got my first ham radio license, and I had a license to communicate outside of my neighborhood. Whenever I turned my ham radio on, I was known as Jeff from New York and I was on equal footing with anyone I would meet on the radio. My ham radio became my gateway to the world.
One of the great things about radio is that you can listen to as many conversations that you like. The people who are talking never know YOU are listening, unless you say something. When speaking on the radio, all of my conversations were assumed to be public. Ham radio and CB radio are not a platform to engage in private conversations.
When I first got started with Ham radio, my license class only allowed me to use morse code to communicate with others. As a result, my messages were short and I learned to abbreviate a lot of things. In many ways similar to the way I tend to abbreviate words when I send a text message. This gave me training at a young age to share ideas in 140 characters or less.
Once my station was setup, which required both setting up an antenna and purchasing a ham radio, if I wanted to find someone to talk to, once I got a higher class license, I would just click on the microphone and send out a “CQ” which is the way ham radio operators express themselves when they are looking for someone to talk to. The FCC gave me my ham radio social identity when I was assigned a ham radio callsign. All conversations started and ended with me using my ham radio social identity.
As I established my social presence on ham radio, I got to know a number of people from the metro NYC area and also made friends with a number of people from around the world. Some of these people I am still friendly with, many years later.
Overall, ham radio was a pretty reliable platform to speak with people from all walks of life from all over the world. However, there were times when I would turn the radio on and I couldn’t find anyone to speak to due to solar flares. And when that happened I turned the radio off and came back a few hours later and tried again. And I continued trying until the radio propagation was restored.
These days, whenever I look at how I use twitter, I can’t help but feel as if twitter is the Two-Way Radio of the internet. twitter is my gateway to the world. It is the platform I go to when I am in a mood to communicate with others.
Whenever and wherever I am online, I can launch a browser, go to twitter and watch the twitter stream of the people I follow. No one knows which conversation I’m “listening” to. I can easily add more people to the conversation by just following more people. At any moment in time I can join a conversation with an @reply to the person whose conversation I wanted to join. And if I want to make sure I can “hear” all side of the conversation, I will follow the other people who are also participating in the conversation.
Just like ham radio, all the conversations on twitter are public, not private, but unlike ham radio, these conversations are all recorded. So whenever I want to catch up, I just go to Summize and catch up on whatever it was that I may have missed. (I always wished I had a way to catch up with the chit chat of some of my ham radio buddies.)
If I’m looking to start a conversation on twitter, while I can (and have) sent out a “CQ” which will eventually get a response, I have discovered when I am online in the morning a simple “Good Morning” is a great way to both start a conversation and make your presence known.
twitter has become a lifeline for communications for me. Regardless of the time of day or night, there is always someone around to communicate with. And depending upon the context of where I am and what is going on, there is usually a variety of things that can and will be discussed.
twitter represents what I can best describe as “real-enough time” communications platform. There are usually some lags and delays between what is said to whom and by whom. And unlike ham radio where I generally can only engage in one conversation at a time, on twitter there is no limit on the number of simultaneous conversations that anyone can be participating in at any given moment. However, after a while it can get difficult to keep track of multiple conversation threads in one’s head.
While I may be in the minority, I’m willing to bet that there is a tiny percentage of people who are active on twitter who would have gone through the effort to become ham radio operators if that is what was required to use twitter. I believe there is a strong connection between ham radio operators and people who enjoy having spending time on twitter engaging in conversations.
“Similarities and Differences”
With Ham Radio, conversations are structured. Each one has a known beginning and end. Most conversations start with CQ and ends with a 73s which translates to “Best Regards” and the message length can be of unbounded in both size and duration. On twitter, conversations are less structured, with no defined beginning or end, but each leg of the conversation is restricted to 140 characters or less. (But it doesn’t seem to matter.)
The tweetups that I attend reminded me of the Ham Radio Swap Meets that I’ve attended over the years. At least in the randomness of the people who might be found at such gatherings. Usually they are people from various walks of life. The only thing we have in common is the platform we use to communicate.
On twitter we don’t suffer from solar flares. Just the occasional “Fail Whale.”
While Ham Radio has its "closed" group of users, twitter has its own group of users (the mass audience is still discovering twitter) but with twitter there is NO barrier to joining. You don’t need any specialized hardware and you don’t need a license, just a computer / mobile device with access to the Internet.
So to me, twitter is the 2-Way Radio of the Internet. A place we can all find our voices. A place you can always find a friend. And the place where you will find me and can always feel free to start a conversation.
Disclaimer: I am someone who is fiercely passionate about communications which lead me to becoming a very minority share holder in twitter.
Tags: twitter, ham radio, Social Media, Jeff Pulver
Please consider leaving a comment. And feel free to find me on twitter and continue this conversation.
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Posted by jeff on August 12, 2008 07:24 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Jeff,
I got here from a friend's blog, http://www.dottingthemap.com/2008/09/01/blog-day-2008/
I like your comparison to ham radio. I've been trying to really wrap my hands around twitter recently and understand it. Your insights have helped.
I'm looking forward to reading your blog - and maybe even following you on twitter!
73,
kf6jxt (Scott Chester).
Posted by: Scott Chester at September 8, 2008 01:27 PM
Thanks a lot Yes Thats is a good idea
Posted by: chat at September 6, 2008 08:35 AM
thanks a lot
Posted by: hikaye at August 21, 2008 02:17 PM
thanks
Posted by: SOHBET ODALARI at August 18, 2008 08:54 PM
thanks a lot
Posted by: sohbet odaları at August 18, 2008 08:54 PM
A couple of observartions
1: On a recent trip to Alaska I was able to use a VX5, handheld radio, to talk to friends back in Sydney Australia while they were doing the drive to work. What is so similar to this with twitter?
2: In Australia we have 2 types of CB. One is the traditional 27mHz stuff you have in the US the other is in the 476 - 477 mHz band and has repeaters available. No licence is required to operate just the ability to acquire a radio. I think twitter aligns more closely with this model than it does amateur radio.
Regards
Peter VK2US
Posted by: Peter at August 14, 2008 07:32 PM
Wow, I loved this post! I too was on CB radios when I was a youngster, and ended up talking mostly with truckers passing through or other bored neighbors.
Great post, keep up the good work! Oh, and I'm following you on twitter :)
Posted by: Helene K at August 14, 2008 06:59 PM
Let's not forget who controls the infrastructure of each-- so not to accidentally think one is infallible (not like this will stop anyone, heh). One infrastructure runs a higher risk of being destroyed than the other in disaster.
I'll pass this around some ham lists and hopefully some opinions will find their way here.
Posted by: Eric Rice at August 13, 2008 05:18 AM
hahaha! no this is a perfect comparison! It's like listening to truck drivers!
Posted by: Zoe Winters at August 12, 2008 03:27 PM
Jeff,
As usual, love your posts. Sorry if I've missed a few, I had a recent family death and therefore have been away from the internet.
As for Twitter, yes - I love the way in which it allows me to have conversations. I know that some people unfollow me because I tweet too much. But those who stay, I really value.
And funny how it goes - with time, I've come to gain followers that I know were not following me and now that they do, they've been really awesome.
Posted by: Raul at August 12, 2008 09:46 AM
Great analogy....having used the ham radio myself, I could relate to every bit of your article.
Posted by: Alok at August 12, 2008 09:13 AM
Jeff,
Lots of parallels, I agree.
Perhaps one difference which is significant to me is that in ham radio, we are not always so concerned about what we are talking about, but how. In other words, the medium is the message.
With Twitter - we're solely concerned about the message - rather than the mechanics of it.
I love Ham Radio because the magic of radio never fails to surprise me - it's a rare day when I don't learn something new (even after 25 years) about the behavio(u)r of radio waves and propagation.
I love Twitter too, because it enables me to engage with people, worldwide on a whole range of subjects. And it's also wonderful to see users of Twitter engage with each other in the same way that ham radio operators have been privileged to do for years.
Tim (G4VXE on ham radio, timkirby_g4vxe on Twitter)
Posted by: Tim at August 12, 2008 08:44 AM
Jeff, what a great post, analogy and early teen story (i could easily see it turning into a great short story). I guess you could still go with "Wildcat" or "Tranquility base".
Posted by: Yael Beeri at August 12, 2008 08:20 AM
Agree with Jeff. I think Twitter is the CB of the Internet. I am reminded of a great CB Radio joke I heard back in the CB days. One way people would get a conversation started would be to ask for the time, which was usually phrased "Breaker 1-9 for a 10-36," which roughly means "I am starting to talk on channel 19, can someone tell me the time."
So the conversation went like this from the other side.
"Hey, guy, I'm not going to give you a 10-36 because if I give you a 10-36, you're going to ask my 20 [10-20, or location]. If I give you my 20, you're going to ask for my home 20 [home address], and if I give you my home 20, you're going to want to come over for a coffee break, and if you come over for a coffee break, you're going to meet my sister, and if you meet my sister you're going to want to date my sister, and if you date my sister, you're going to want to marry my sister, and I don't want no sonufabitch who can't afford to buy a wristwatch marrying my sister!"
Do that in 140 characters!
Posted by: Steven Lubetkin at August 12, 2008 08:15 AM
great analogy, 10/4 good buddy?!
Posted by: Mark at August 12, 2008 08:10 AM
What a great analogy. It surely puts twitter in the right context and makes it easier to explain to others. Thanks.
Posted by: Arik at August 12, 2008 07:54 AM
Jeff
How right you are. Having been a ham radio op for over 30 years, I completely agree that the 'feel' of Twitter is similar in many ways. Lots of people having 2-way or multi-way conversations, none of them private, and many thousands of people potentially 'listening', jumping in if they have something to say.
And when a solar flare strikes (eg a fail whale)... change to a lower frequency. inden.ti.ca or plurk perhaps. Some of the same people will be there; there are specialists who only hang out there; and you can go back to your preferred 'band' when conditions allow.
de G4MJS (ham radio) / peeebeee (Twitter)
Posted by: Peter Bowyer at August 12, 2008 07:44 AM