I think we have different use cases, despite being in the same demographic.
You speak of using Twitter "in [your] circle of friends", but I'd say about half of my "Twitter friends" (mutuals who I regularly interact with) aren't within my "friend circle." My high school circle keeps in touch with an FB group chat, and the occasional Snapchat. My college circle keeps in touch with some FB and Instagram posting. Twitter is a different beast.
> Tumblr has better discoverability of people whose content you may legitimately enjoy, and endless reblogging is encouraged and not a faux-pas, which is a great way to fill your "timeline" when you have nothing to say, or a great way to counterbalance personal posts that all implicitly solicit your friends' attention (however briefly).
For me, this is a negative. I don't WANT endless reblogging filling up my page. I like seeing content created by the people I follow, even if it's all personal posts, which I often enjoy more than other sorts of content.
Twitter also has a real-time aspect that Tumblr does not. Many people use queues on Tumblr, which, to me, would completely defeat the purpose of having a "feed." Just let me browse individuals' queues at my own leisure.
> Instagram flips the 'attachment' and the 'tweet' into 'image' and 'caption', and people like visuals. The image either provides aesthetic gratification on its own, or it's a social icebreaker used to carry the content in its caption
I very rarely see people having actual conversation on Instagram. I enjoy seeing the content, but I doubt that I'd ever meet someone completely new over Instagram unless I had an OC art/photography/etc account.
> Snapchat is used the same way
I don't think that's true either. Instagram seems to be carefully considered and orchestrated photos, while Snapchat is quick, low quality and one-off. It's a conversational way of using images (which is clever), but it also requires more investment for each conversation.
> It's not particularly fun to shout into the ether; so Twitter doesn't even do that function well.
This is my main point of disagreement. I personally DO find it fun (or at least cathartic) to shout into the ether, when that ether is a loosely anonymous group of quasi-friends (with a couple actual friends tossed in there too). No other service provides this.
I also like seeing the raw, real-time stream-of-thought posts. Facebook and Instagram are too curated, Tumblr is too rebloggy and non-real-time, and Snapchat is too personal/one-on-one.
Anyway, hope this justification makes sense. Obviously if you don't see a use case for it, you're not under obligation to use it. I wouldn't use it either if I had a really solid local social circle, but in lieu of constant online interaction with actual friends, Twitter works well enough.
You speak of using Twitter "in [your] circle of friends", but I'd say about half of my "Twitter friends" (mutuals who I regularly interact with) aren't within my "friend circle." My high school circle keeps in touch with an FB group chat, and the occasional Snapchat. My college circle keeps in touch with some FB and Instagram posting. Twitter is a different beast.
> Tumblr has better discoverability of people whose content you may legitimately enjoy, and endless reblogging is encouraged and not a faux-pas, which is a great way to fill your "timeline" when you have nothing to say, or a great way to counterbalance personal posts that all implicitly solicit your friends' attention (however briefly).
For me, this is a negative. I don't WANT endless reblogging filling up my page. I like seeing content created by the people I follow, even if it's all personal posts, which I often enjoy more than other sorts of content.
Twitter also has a real-time aspect that Tumblr does not. Many people use queues on Tumblr, which, to me, would completely defeat the purpose of having a "feed." Just let me browse individuals' queues at my own leisure.
> Instagram flips the 'attachment' and the 'tweet' into 'image' and 'caption', and people like visuals. The image either provides aesthetic gratification on its own, or it's a social icebreaker used to carry the content in its caption
I very rarely see people having actual conversation on Instagram. I enjoy seeing the content, but I doubt that I'd ever meet someone completely new over Instagram unless I had an OC art/photography/etc account.
> Snapchat is used the same way
I don't think that's true either. Instagram seems to be carefully considered and orchestrated photos, while Snapchat is quick, low quality and one-off. It's a conversational way of using images (which is clever), but it also requires more investment for each conversation.
> It's not particularly fun to shout into the ether; so Twitter doesn't even do that function well.
This is my main point of disagreement. I personally DO find it fun (or at least cathartic) to shout into the ether, when that ether is a loosely anonymous group of quasi-friends (with a couple actual friends tossed in there too). No other service provides this.
I also like seeing the raw, real-time stream-of-thought posts. Facebook and Instagram are too curated, Tumblr is too rebloggy and non-real-time, and Snapchat is too personal/one-on-one.
Anyway, hope this justification makes sense. Obviously if you don't see a use case for it, you're not under obligation to use it. I wouldn't use it either if I had a really solid local social circle, but in lieu of constant online interaction with actual friends, Twitter works well enough.