Twitter Books

I was at Barnes & Noble yesterday with the family and ran across a book called Twitter Power (they had a whole table of social media stuff). Here was a 250-page hardcover about how to communicate in 140 characters or less. The irony was so thick it almost tripped me.

It’s a shame that something that was meant to be, well, I’m not really sure what—something—is now no longer a social media phenomenon, but a social marketing tool. I’m no purist, I would use Twitter to advance my professional interests if I had any, but this just feels dirty to me. Why must everything turn into a marketing tool?

Is there any communication tool in existence that hasn’t been taken over for marketing? Why can’t anyone look at a beneficial communication technology and leave it alone?

Of course, I’m just as bad as anyone else, because all I’ve tweeted for 2 months are new blog posts, so take this for what it’s worth (probably not a whole lot).