I was thinking about Twitter at the weekend. That’ll annoy the readers of the Guardian. Take a look…any article on the Guardian website that has any mention of Twitter seems to attract a stream of vitriolic comments like you’ve never seen. Lots of them are of the “Twitters for egotistical idiots who think that everyone’s interested in what they’re doing every minute of the day and it’s just a fad which’ll be around until the next shiny new thing come along” type.
And I can understand that. Hell, when I first came across Twitter, I had a similar reaction. But I don’t now.
When you first have a look at Twitter, it does seem a bit rubbish. And then you sign up and start following people like Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross, which is fun for a bit but then gets really, really dull. In the meantime, you’ve started following people you know, people who work in the same area as you do, and people that make you laugh (this is really important, I reckon). As with any social media, there’s more to be had in listening than in talking.
Over time, you build a little network of people who add value to your life in one way or another. And I reckon it is a relatively small network. I follow fewer than 300 people. Any more than that and there’s no way that I’d be able to keep up. I’m still suspicious of people who follow thousands.
The 300 people I follow are what I might call my network of trusted sources. I’ve vetted then all and therefore listen when they say something or point me to some information. In fact, as my feed reader replaced a huge amount of my web browsing, so Twitter has reduced the amount of time I spend checking my feed reader. I’m either subscribing to the Twitter feeds of the same sources or, more often, I’m being pointed to relevant content by my network.
Which is why I don’t think Twitter’s a fad. It’s become as fundamental to my working life as email, IM, browsing and RSS feeds. All of these technologies had their naysayers. Honestly, I remember an old schoolmate of mine who was working in the City in the mid-90s who said that he “couldn’t see a day when his company would use email due to its inherent insecurity.” As long as my network’s on Twitter, I will be.
Mind you, email’s about as far as my mate’s got. His wife stuck him on Facebook but I’m not convinced he’s ever been there himself. Twitter’s as far away for him as a lightsabre is for me.
But he’ll get there (as will I, because The Force is strong in this one).
Mark Pinsent (@markpinsent)
July 21, 2009 at 8:37 am
Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more – I rarely check my netvibes anymore, simply because it’s become too slow. The volume of information coming into it is too large and I’m more trusting of the information recommended or qualified by the – altogether more experienced and trustworthy – sources I’ve got on Twitter.
My main gripe is the inability to properly catalogue my tagged ‘favourites’ in meaningful way – I end up becoming reliant on Digg when I’d rather be able to file the interesting tweets accordingly. Saying that, there is an abundance of tools for searching, measuring and engaging (am going to say more on that in a future post).
To the Gruaniad’s critical readers and those stalwart naysayers – the ‘fadishness’ you spout is on the assumption that a stronger alternative will emerge in the near future to unseat the 140-character flash-in-the-pan. You’ve watched others come and go, and expect Twitter to be another one of them. I agree, more will come (watch an explosion in mobile, video and combinations thereof within the next 12-24) but Twitter will remain.
A simple example. Since the social networking explosion, we’ve seen a decline in the barriers to entry – a transition from sites that required a moderate amount of technical know-how and significant maintenance(remember fiddling with MySpace pages?) to much clearer, intuitive models: Facebook succeeded in no small measure due its simplicity and usebility. Twitter is the most pared-down, minimalist, clear concept so far – short of reducing the word count, you can’t strip away any more. As far as accessible social networks go, it’s pretty much there; and importantly, it now has mass, with the user-base increasing exponentially (Mashable reckons it grew by 750% in 2008).
Simplicity, combined with genuine value – Twitter gives me more valuable information at work than most trad’ news sources; it’s certainly faster and more palatable.
Twitter will improve its search function; the developer community will continue to build services to tack onto it, making it more functional; the spam count will increase, provoking better filtering and privacy controls; it will monetise itself (Luke and I have been discussing a ad-based ‘endorsement tweet’ service where users could opt in and choose pre-designed, branded tweets to retweet; unfortunately, some swine has already made it). They may be bought, they may buy others; they will collaborate with other brands; and I think they’ll make much better use of video.
You can see from the techcrunch leak that they’ve got big plans at twitter (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/16/twitters-internal-strategy-laid-bare-to-be-the-pulse-of-the-planet/) and I do think it will continue to succeed. Teenage interns at Morgan Stanley may not use it right now, but they will – the moment they join the working week and realise that their workmates won’t accept their Facebook friend requests.
But seriously. They’d better sort out their fucking filing system.
July 21, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I think the important point is that as social media evolves it is becoming incresaingly humanised and flexible. Many different forms of social media behaviour are developing from blogging purists to tweetomaniacs to those who use twitter primarily but combine it with more indepth detailed blog entries.
July 21, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Here Here.
I must now spend 60-70% of my “online-time” on Twitter now. It’s a great way of communicating – talking and listening, sourcing information and keeping abreast of topics interesting to you. It is, to a degree, my new Netvibes (unlike Will I do still check Netvibes but spend less time there). What is apparent, more than ever, is the immediacy of information and its value. Twitter, by its very nature, embodies the old notion that today’s newspapers are tomorrows fish and chip wrappers but in a hyper-speed fashion (in my case if a tweet’s an hour old I’ve missed it, it’s gone, forgotten (but of course not lost – it’s permanent, tattooed into a data server somewhere in the US)…
I found the whole “Morgan Stanley” report last week, fascinating. I was in the US last week and the story was everywhere – the world seemed “surprised” that so much attention could be paid to the words of a mere 15 year old. What does he know? What authority does he have? Why did the financial markets care so much? The most surprising thing here, I thought, and perhaps the reason it got so much attention, was that it highlighted just how great the gap was between the business world and the future workforce. The business world really had no idea what the new generation thought, did, used… This is a perfect opportunity to weave in Ruby Psuedu into the conversation – Ruby just published her own retort, not a report to the Morgan Stanley report. An interview with their own 15 year old intern. As you’ll see like most under 18 year olds she’s not using Twitter either (yet). http://rubypseudochatchat.blogspot.com/2009/07/ruby-retort-from-15-year-old-chantelle.html
July 21, 2009 at 1:35 pm
oh and what timing you have Mark. Front page of the FT today http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9f569d94-7546-11de-9ed5-00144feabdc0.html
Twitter do’s and dont’s for Brands. Makes for essential reading. I do still chuckle at the poor Habitat “intern” – joining the Iran election to a furniture offer… genius.
July 21, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Top thoughts guys.
Saw the FT article this morning – liked the fact that Tim Bradshaw used Twitter to source the content! This from the other day: http://twitter.com/tim/status/2687189470
July 21, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I’ll add another “hear hear” here.
The biggest misconception is that Twitter is a way of telling people what you’re doing – what you’ve eaten, that your bus is late, where you’re going tonight. This isn’t helped by the celebs that, who to me at least, don’t add value to the Twitter experience.
Twitter is all about sharing information, recommending articles, films, songs etc. You trust your network because you like what you see. It’s not about you – it’s about what you think will be of interest to other like minded ‘tweeple’. (Apologies for the use of tweeple).
But I also like the snacking element of Twitter. The fact very little personal information is stored in the biog, makes it easier to zone in and zone out. I have to be really drunk to defriend people on Facebook, because on some level I think they might be mortally offended. Even if I haven’t spoken to that random who added me two years ago becase we were at the same primary school…
Twitter on the other hand lets you wield the power freely – unfollowing people who aren’t relevant to you anymore with ease (usually celebs you followed at the beginning) and adding new people to your network. It’s this that makes it so compelling for me – it’s constantly organic.
July 21, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Yeah Tim’s article is good. So is Rory at the BBC’s take on how twitter is effecting movie and album releases (though Twitter not the first technology to disrupt traditional campaigns for the latter).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/07/bruno_and_bonos_box_office_blu.html
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