The Library of Congress just announced the following (big!) news today via Twitter:
Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive -- ALL public tweets, ever, since March 2006! Details to follow.I'm in a Roman state of mind right now, perhaps (been watching HBO/BBC's Rome and reading the terrific Pagan Holiday). This news raises a number of very important questions about intellectual property and the ownership of tweets. But once those issues are sorted out (and we quickly delete all our most embarrassing tweets), I think future historians will find this archive invaluable.
http://twitter.com/librarycongress/status/12169442690
Yes, trending topics like #ihatequotes and #nowplaying may seem inane to us now. But they'll be just like the "tweets" from Pompeii preserved forever on walls and doors, shedding light on the colloquial language and plebeian values that never made it into Plutarch's Lives:
On April 19th, I made bread
What a lot of tricks you use to deceive, innkeeper. You sell water but drink unmixed wine
Rufus loves Cornelia Hele
http://pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%20Pompeii.htm
Image via Laura Padgett.
Labels: history, internet, language, technology
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