Carmen GradwellCould Twitter soon be a thing of the past?
Conservative MP Louise Mensch certainly hopes so having just launched rival site menshn.com- a talk the topic social networking site for those of us who wish to abandon the hash tagging and @ signs. The site- allowing 180 characters per menshn (short for “mention”) recently launched in the US and is topic based rather than uncategorised like Twitter.
The arrival of Twitter, for many- obliterated the tiresome anecdotes of Facebook. We can tweet, follow and stalk our favourite celebs, political figures and sporting heroes without the constant boring updates of our “friends” lives, (“about to take a shower lol”) annoying pictures of their meals and ever changing relationship status’. In effect Twitter swerves round the BS associated with Facebook.
However Menshn aims to keep conversations on single topics; but how on earth does Ms Mensch expect to seriously rival Twitter- which boasts over 175 million users? Its name Menshn hardly rolls of the tongue does it? It hardly has the appeal of a Tweet. And being stuck to just one topic…? Erm…Is it not true that we genuinely enjoy Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) and Alan Sugars- “Shugsy” (@alansugar) ongoing friendly feud? That we want to read Frankie Boyle’s (@frankieboyle) jokes? That we can’t help but tweet random rubbish that people are most likely not so interested in reading, adding interesting pictures to illustrate our point? We are human beings and we hate to be confined to one topic…it isn’t in our nature. We like a tangent, to go off the beaten track. Plus the metaphoric pat on the back we feel when we get retweeted or gain a new follower is a hard to beat feeling and cannot possibly be met by new “talk the topic” site Menshn. Can it?
But don’t worry your hashtags and @ signs just yet. Menshn has yet to even come to Britain but perhaps….just maybe, we should watch this space!