The English word "society" emerged in the 15th century and is derived from the French société. The French word, in turn, had its origin in the Latin societas, a "friendly association with others," from socius meaning "companion, associate, comrade or business partner." The Latin word is probably related to the verb sequi, "to follow", and thus originally may have meant "follower".If that's a good etymology then Twitter may well be tapping into the Societal web, at least in one aspect. I guess the question is: Can you build a society in 140 characters, and what would it mean to do that? It's interesting that one of the features of modern society, convention, has developed in Twitter, and a language that applies only to that medium. Re-tweeting, Direct messaging, #hastags and so on only have specific meaning in the Twitter society. Again, like a society, tools are being developed to make different tasks easier, and the adoption of the tools depends on the operating style that you prefer. Tweetdeck, Twirl and so on provide different views of the same underlying society. There are clearly features of society in the twitterings of many.
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