Tag Archives: changes

Twitter recently changed its prompt to users from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?”  This de-personalization of Twitter is a much needed call away from the “Going to take a shower then bake a pie” kinds of posts — of which non-users assume Twitter is chock-full — and a nudge to current Tweeters to report rather than self-report.  Twitter’s asking its users to be citizen journalists, a title that gets thrown around a lot right now in discussions of the fate of the newspaper and the direction of online news, but a title that nonetheless places a burden of responsibility on the action of Tweeting.  Rather than updating followers on the minutia of one’s daily life (the kind of updates that prompt me to hit the block button), using Twitter becomes about civic duty and the circulation of information.  I hope users are ready to answer the call.