Media Caffeine
Monday, March 30th, 200914 Twitter Personality Types
I have multiple personality disorder.
Twitter: Conflicting Views On The Future
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009Twitter rocks. I love Twitter and I’m not afraid to say it. Twitter is to me today, what blogging was me a couple years ago. It’s newsy, helpful, fills a need and it’s the future.
I don’t put it in the category of Facebook because Facebook and MySpace are completely different social media. Those social networks are meant to form a platform for connecting and gathering and grouping and remind me of a knitting circle. Facebook has been great for connecting me to High School, College, and other friends and family. That’s cool. It’s been helpful with gathering groups online. I like Facebook. It’s functional and good for what it is.
I love Twitter.
Twitter is like the sleek little hot rod of social media. Vroom! Vroom! News comes in flashes from absolutely solid sources. I follow people I respect and these people don’t let me down. They add value in the form of humor, information, and conversation. I have met more people and gotten to know them better on Twitter than I ever have on Facebook.
Still, some people are afraid Twitter is headed for trouble. Dova Spivak worries:
Twitter is still relatively small in terms of users, and most of the content is still being added by people. But not for long. Two things are beginning to happen that will change Twitter massively:
1. Mainstream Adoption. Tens of millions of new users are going to flood into the service. It is going to fill up with mainstream consumers. Many of them won’t have a clue how to use Twitter.
2. Notifications Galore. Every service on the Web is going to rush to pump notifications and invites into Twitter.Twitter reminds me of CB radio — and that is a double-edged blessing. In Twitter the “radio frequencies” are people and hashtags. If you post to your Twitter account, or do an @reply to someone else, you are broadcasting to all the followers of that account. Similarly, if you tweet something and add hashtags to it, you are broadcasting that to everyone who follows those hashtags.
Oh fiddlesticks! As to the Mainstream adoption by people who don’t know how to use it. Well, they’ll learn and quickly. If they talk about their toe fungus and make it uninteresting, they’ll be talking to themselves. If someone Tweets and no one listens, where’s the harm?
And as for notifications? It’s called blocking and filtering. We have TiVo for goodness sake. Some filtering device will be created the moment notifications from companies become annoying.
Mostly, I think the explosive growth of Twitter is more likely and that it will be a good thing:
Twitter will fuse with other technologies such as GPS on mobile phones, so that people will find themselves communicating with others not just based on topics of interest, or personal links of some kind, but based on where they are sitting or standing right now.
Twitter is very similar to Google in approach: very simple home page with few options. Expect Twitter to concentrate first on rapid growth, before trying to work out how to make money from the service. Expect Google to watch Twitter with huge interest.
Rivals to TwitterThere is a limited opportunity (if taken soon) to develop a rival platform, especially since the Twitter site is (still) so easy to ransack for contacts, replies and so on, from your own account, to import into other applications or platforms. Twitter could develop into an exclusive platform with a near-monopoly position, just as Skype has done for internet calls, and YouTube has done for video.
Twitter was originally linked very closely to SMS on mobile phones – hence the 140 character limit on length of messages. But outside the US, very few phone companies allow Twitter messages without charging. Expect this to change, with special phone deals allowing Twitter SMS to be included (perhaps with limits on numbers of messages allowed a month).
People are going to Twitter for business (I do–follow me at Dr. Clouthier for health related information–also, I’ll probably not follow you back unless you’re a doctor or in the health-related field. Why? Because I want people who look through my follow list and find rock-solid valuable health resources on Twitter. In essence, I’m doing some filtering for the person following me if they look through my follow list). Businesses will use it for customer service and for a more immediate feedback and market research.
The average age of a Twitter user is 35. That is a marketing sweetspot. This is not the High School band kids on MySpace or the college kids on Facebook (although that’s changed, too). Twitter is for grown ups who are busy and need information quickly.
I didn’t get Twitter at first. My account sat dormant for months before trying it earnest. You HAVE to try it. It is a medium that requires on-the-job learning. But the learning curve is small and the benefits great. And then, you’ll find a way to integrate it into your life–like the phone (instead of the pony express), the radio (instead of a concert), the car (instead of a horse). Twitter will replace Newspapers even more so than blogs have because it is more efficient and quicker and then people will follow links to the blog. Twitter will be the filter. More specifically, the people who you follow will filter information for you. So, how smart or dumb will your filter be?
Finally, Twitter can go everywhere. It’s small and portable, yet rich and complex. The possibilities seem endless and indeed, new Apps are being written daily that make it easier to integrate.
Will Twitter flame out? I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t think so. I put Twitter in the category that blogs were in four years ago. The best blogs rise to the top. The best writers come together on group blogs. Blogs are still here and are growing, consolidating and changing. That will be Twitter.
There are Twitter doubters. I’m sure, back in the day, there were people who doubted the usefulness of telephones, too.
Twitter For Business & Pleasure
Thursday, March 12th, 2009What’s the point of Twitter?
I’ve been asked that more times than I can count. When I signed up in August, I thought it was a waste. However, around Thanksgiving, I decided that in order to doom the product, a more honest interaction with it was in order. Over that weekend, I followed multiple interesting people, immersed myself…and was hooked.
But what have I gained? Besides making good friends who have translated into real life–phone calls, in-person meetings, etc., I’ve had more business help than I have ever received using Facebook, MySpace or even the business social network LinkedIn.
Here are some examples:
I needed someone to do a logo design tweak for me. The value of the work was around $50. Not bad for probably less than an hour of time. I put it on Twitter and within five minutes had three offers from great people. The winner ended up being the wife of Robbie Cooper a blog-friend in Austin.
I needed business cards and fast. I also needed design advice. CPAC was three days away–should I get patriotic cards or hip cards? Republicans can seem kinda traditional, right? So, everyone said “hip! go hip!” My intention was to go to the local shop. Instead, a Twitter friend @AliAkbar recommended that I use a printer Faulkner Strategies (contact Sarah Romero) in Indiana. They gave the best service!
I hated my Tweetback. A new friend on Twitter @JasonTryfon had an awesome Twitterback and I told him so. He generously had his gifted graphic artist modify Jason’s to suit me and it’s awesome. More than that, now, I have a great connection in the customer service industry. He’s phenomenal and I can highly recommend his services.
I made a friend of a friend named @museumcurator on Twitter. Sometimes I pick people who seem interesting in industries totally unrelated to mine because I like learning new things. Turns out, he DM’d [direct rather than public message] me saying that he was having a contest and that each month, he’d pick out the best <140 character story about why I should get a Free Angel (he does angel art reproductions). Should I do this? Well, I did. He immediately responded and said, forget the contest, I'm sending you an angel. We then connected through email and yesterday, talked on the phone. This was a human, real connection. Jeff Cane (that's his name) is a ex-pat Brit artist living in Los Angeles who owns a company doing beautiful reproductions. I have two friends who collect angels and will buy something from him for them. He ships everywhere. What could be easier?
Perhaps the most concrete way Twitter has helped me has been through story ideas. Not only do I connect to great writing–I’m connecting to the writers. Some of my favorites have become friends–Steve Green aka @VodkaPundit and James Lileks aka @Lileks and Fausta Wertz aka @Fausta come to mind. I suspected through their writing that I would like them. It’s turned out to be true. They are wonderful writers and interesting people.
Don’t you like doing business with people you like? Through Twitter, I have done just that. And really, it’s only the beginning. Join me on Twitter at @MelissaTweets
Tweet Fight Over Earmarks
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009So Senators using Twitter are giving constituents a peak behind conference doors. Evidently, it’s unpleasant. Not surprising. A room full of politicians….anyway. Here’s the kerfluffle as reported by AirCongress:
The Arizona Republican posted his first anti-pork list under the Twitter name @SenJohnMcCain late last week, calling attention to projects like $650,000 for beaver management and $1.7 million for pig odor research. He brought the Top 10 list “back by popular demand” the first two days of this week. The project in the No. 1 slot today: “$951,500 for the Oregon Solar Highway.”
That dishonor didn’t sit well with Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, whose home state stands to benefit from the earmark. Tweeting as @repblumenauer, he mocked McCain.
Telling ya. If you’re not on Twitter, you’re missing some good stuff. Join me, @MelissaTweets, today!
H/T Enlightened Redneck, Danny Glover
Hugh Hewitt Embraces Twitter, Finally
Saturday, November 29th, 2008Hugh Hewitt Embraces Twitter, Finally
Awesome!
