Article posted on Mar 09
We all have one in the family… You know, that nephew, cousin, or sibling. The one you’re pretty sure ate flakes of lead based paint? The one you felt was completely out of control, or seriously broken as a kid. Then just backward and obnoxious as a teen, always out to get attention. Then as they began to grow toward adulthood, you’re still not fully convinced, but it’s shocking to see some of the value and depth of them begin to shine through.
No, we;r not talking about me here. I’m talking about twitter.
I started on twitter the same way I am sure a lot of the readers here did. I was an early adopter, and started doing it all from my phone over SMS. It did not take long at all to realize that was a big mistake, and that I was getting spammed at inopportune times with meaningless crap about who was parking their car, or going to lunch.
Others may have taken different routes at this point, but I opted next for IM. I couldn’t stand the updates to my cell, but my Instant Messenger client seemed like a better fit.
Until I realized that normally an IM is someone who actually needs my attention fairly quickly. I found myself sprinting over to my desk to see who was IM’ing, only to find more meaningless drivel.
I never have liked the web interface for twitter that much, so I started shopping for other solutions. I tend to like twitterific, and Event box (my FAVORITE by far for managing social media.)
But still, I watched twitter’s usage go through to phases of:
- Early adopters getting a feel for it and using it much like an SMS chatroom
- Coolness spammers who don’t really use it to connect much at all, but use it more for their personal mini-billboard to advertize what cool person they’re meeting with or what neat aricle someone told them to read, so they’ll pass that info along to look insightful.
- “Social Gurus” who appear to be pretty good at building their own social network, and claiming to be experts, but never seem to be able to provide a strategy to companies or business to actually monetize it in any way (not to imply that everything has to make money to be worthwhile.)
To where we are now.
Up until now we have watched the recognizable pattern of that akward cousin. But was it paint chips, or brilliance bubbling just under the surface of that weird grin?
Enter hashtags and search. Enter Twitter Hawk and Summizer.
I’m not saying that twitter has nailed it, or that this one is sailing out of the park… but dang, that awkward girl from high-school just got kinda pretty.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about here, imagine Google, but on a smaller, manageable scale, that lets you follow trends, topics, and your brand real-time. It let’s you see what people are saying right now, and interact with those people. Further, it lets you see what topics are currently hot.
Twitter is flooded constantly with people expressing their thoughts in immediate, concise ways, and to react to thought blips of others. New tools let you easily tap into this, learn from it, and react to it.
You remember in the latest Batman movie, how he turned all of the cell phones in Gotham into his own personal way to hear (and through sonics, “see”) everything going on in Gotham? Then he had the computer monitor for specific voices or phrases. It’s kinda like that.
Several of my nieces, nephews, and cousins have now grown to adulthood. I am really impressed with the people they have turned out to be. It sure looks like twitter, and the way a lot of people are using it, is turning that corner.
When the surf is up, ride it! :~)
Steve, et. al.,
You may find the following interesting. I was one of those people who made fun of or heavily made fun of Twitter as well, turned around, and use it and at least understand it (whether it is for me or not). I find it excellent for information researching on particularly small tidbits of info. Who struck what deal with whom, news feeds, etc. This said, the voyeuristic aspects of Twitter still largely creep many people out as is rising quantities of people who are “internet famous” and the effects the ‘fame’ is having on their real lives. I think certain segments will use twitter extensively but I never see the penetration that Facebook sees.
Likewise I tallied the number of registered members of >the top 20 online discussion forums alone and it is approaching 200 million people — from just these 20 discussion forums alone out of the thousands and thousands out there. Discussion forums are the hidden, old school, right in front of our face, jem that no one seems to notice. I am happy to offer this info for free of course
From an excellent document by Gartner Research about 2008 social media trends:
The curve is moving a little faster but we are going to see a backlash or at least a serious deflation in twitter.
One last thing is the most profound movie I saw during Sundance this year was Documentary Grand Jury Prize Winner “We Live in Public” – about the (creepy) aspects of the future of the Internet. Humans are dumb but not that dumb, I really do thing an anti-twitteresque backlash possibly may even be coming, or at least some death of this hype cycle, bare min.
It would not allow me to post the image – follow this link to see an illustration of where twitter falls in the “Hype Cycle for Social Software, 2008.”
From Gartner Research — 1 year old but still very applicable. Link.
Andre,
Interesting points. I definitely agree with your position that Forums are the lurking giant that so many forget about.
But it gets me thinking… Are twitter’s days really numbered? Will there really be a “backlash” (And I’d love to hear more about what you envision such a backlash to look like)? Or will it significantly adapt?
As an example… We are already seeing the use of hashtags as a significant change in the usage of twitter. You can look at any point in time, and see what are the hot topics (or search for topics), and then chime right in. What is that really, but an informal forum?
Of course there are a few other differences. One being the whole concept of “following”. This is an area of twitter that I feel has gotten out of control. Everyone wants more followers. But almost no productive person really has the time to pay attention to the folks they already follow. It has become noise.
But that’s part of the magic of twitter (and facebook quite frankly) as well. The fact that it’s not like email… I don’t need o pay attention to it, and read every message, and reply all of the time. It’s a stream of information that I can pay attention to when I want to, and even apply filters to.
I think the reality is something between forums and twitter… or maybe forums plus a twitter-like component. If I can chime in on a forum, and then subscribe to a hastag of that topic, and chime in when I want, you might see a lot more activity in forums.
But I think that the hashtag, or more importantly “topic” concept is a must. Otherwise twitter is just “spew”. It’s too much stuff, too fast, and looking at the twitters scrolling down my screen right now, less and less of them seem to be of any substance.
I can envision a tool that allows me to list a lot of people that I want to follow… but rather than just streaming the stuff they’re typing, I have a few different views. One being the real-time everything of my closest friends. Another tab being a list of the hottest topics that my list of friends are talking about. Another tab is hot topics in conversation world wide. Another is my “searches”, or topics I keep an ear out for.
That might be a bit more interesting.
Also, the twitter-like interface to forums would be awesome.
So what am I saying? I’m saying that my twitter stream is too damn much off topic, irrelevant crap right now.
But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater
Steve,
Here are a couple tweets relevant to what I’m talking about..
http://twitter.com/andreshoumatoff
This is the ‘backlash’ I’m talking about, which the diagram I linked earlier uses the term “trough of disillusionment.” I consider Twitter a very useful tool, particularly as it finds its niche. It is an excellent communications tool. However I feel the mundane details of one’s life are ultimately the undoing of twitter (or will largely create the ‘backlash’). The point is (looking again at the linked illustration) all proven social technologies have gone through the ‘trough of disillusionment’ so the backlash is sort of like all the corporations who flocked to Myspace a few years ago, sort of a ‘what were were thinking’ type mentality. It is a bummer because companies in the twitter setting actually provide useful information that followers can enjoy, so I hope they stick with it.
Very interesting and relevant comments about twitter as a ‘forum’ or a conversation piece.
Cheers,
Andre