I joined Twitter in April of 2007 March of 2006 and used it daily, fervently, religiously for a solid seventeen years. It was an absolute joy to me and I loved it. I interacted with thousands of people across the globe, made friends, and posted much, much more often than I probably should have. It was also my primary source of college football news. On Saturdays in the Fall I took great delight in posting things like, “OMG! INT!” and dozens of other fans replying because they were watching the same game.
I remember first seeing people using it at SXSW to alert friends and co-workers where the parties were going to be. Back then there was no website or interface at all as I recall. You sent a text message and your “followers” would all receive it. It was ground-breaking.
But now it’s time to go. I haven’t looked at it in months and any time I do I’m barraged with drivel and poorly-targeted ads and it’s simply depressing. The site offers a way to download an archive of your posts, but I guess 490MB is too large for their servers to transfer because it repeatedly fails. The rapid decline of the technological capabilities of what was once a cutting-edge Internet startup is almost as disheartening as its new owner’s descent into madness.