Wednesday, February 18, 2009

New: twistori

There's not much to say about twistori, except that it is a wonderful use of the Twitter developer API. They import tweets from different Twitter Searches, and have a scrolling list of the tweets that come up.

The searches are sort of primal emotions: love, hate, wish, believe. This makes a rather intriguing list of tweets, all of which contain the chosen phrase. Reading many of them in a row interrupts your expectation of what you think people may be wishing for or believing in.

It is a little frustrating as the list moves quickly, and there is no way to scroll. It is a self-described experiment, and for what it is, it does it well. Really it's just for fun at this point, but the creators say it is the "first stage of an ongoing social experiment." I wonder what the experiment could be? Defining a more fleeting notion of love and hate? An attempt to expose the folly of the tweeter who writes "I love wendys even though it clogs my arteries"?

Perhaps we will never know, but that doesn't mean we can't sit back and enjoy the ride. There's even a screensaver for Mac OS X.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with the expression and wonder you have when you say "What experiment it could be?".

    I could not make much sense out of twistori as of now other than that , it reminds me of general Yahoo chat rooms where people "scream" in different colors and different moods in different fonts.

    Not being able to scroll only adds to my woes.

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  2. Twistori is a colorful distraction. Makes you 'feel' like you're not alone in the world. Would make a fun screensaver..

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