When Biz Stone, a co-founder of Twitter, relates the story behind his iconic venture, he likes to use a picture of a flock of birds. The reason? As Stone tells the story, he first appreciated the power of social media a few years ago, when he watched a crowd suddenly arrive at a bar after exchanging messages on a phone. That event, Stone says, helped him to understand how social media enabled people to suddenly congregate with unforeseen speed and force. To put it another way, what 21st-century tools do is enable people to “flock” together – around ideas, emotions, places or events. Hence that picture of birds.
Twitter聯合創辦人比茲•史東(Biz Stone)在講述他的標誌性創業公司背後的故事時，喜歡借用一張畫着一羣飛鳥的圖片。原因何在？且聽他慢慢道來。幾年前，他第一次領略到了社群媒體的力量，當時他看到一羣人通過電話聯絡之後，迅速到一家酒吧集結起來。史東表示，通過那件事，他明白了社群媒體是如何使得人們能以一種難以預料的速度和力量聚集到一起。換句話說，21世紀工具的作用讓人們能夠圍繞想法、情緒、地點和事件「聚集」到一起。這就是借用那張飛鳥圖片的原因。