Twitter… I Finally Get It! Part One
Posted by Andrew MooreJan 10
I opened a Twitter account about a year ago. I looked for a few of my friends. I “followed” them. I “tweeted” that I was working hard. I waited and nothing happened. No one followed me. I tweeted that I was heading to a meeting. No one followed me back, replied to me.. nothing. I had concluded that Twitter was junk and that no one would want to know a person was sitting on their back porch eating a snack. I did not log into my account for another 8 months.
Web 2.0 and Counting....
During the same time period I had opened a Facebook account due to total pressure from my wife. I got involved quickly as I connected with people I had not seen in decades. I posted pictures and thought of witty things to talk about. People posted back. There was reciprocation. I was excited by the volume of friends I had.
After a few months of connecting with the people I cared about and having the newness wear off, I began to see that there was far too much clutter on my account. People would post about how their kid had a very personal internal illness or a picture of drunken idiocy that no person would be publicly proud of. I then got nailed with pokes and Mafia Wars and Farm Town… I began to lose my connections due to all the noise.
I began to take a different look at Social Networking as part of an effort to solidify my personal brand. I had decided that if there was going to be a wealth of information about me on the web, why not streamline it and control the message and image. I then began to look at Twitter again.
Web 2.0 had taken over. Oreilly talks about Web 2.0 as a platform for development. Without getting into mind numbing nerd talk- the idea is now that the “web is interactive”. Before- people would email and wait for a response. Sites were designed for one way communication. Either people put information online for others to see or a person emailed a site for information regarding something. Suddenly, sites had real-time collaboration and interaction. Not only with the site but with others using the sites. The world was changing….
As wireless connectivity became a staple for companies and was made affordable, Cell Phones took the Web 2.0 leap a step further. In 2005 25% of companies used wireless broadband. In 2016 that number is expected to be 83% according to Information Week. Interactive websites and applications were mobile. Couple this with the ability to take, store and upload photos and videos- the interactive age of technology was upon us.
This all leads us to where we are today. Web 2.0 is here and it is everywhere. Twitter was the linchpin. Twitter was what tied it all together. What I had failed to realize was that Twitter was built around a zero reciprocation model. Twitter was able to be so simple that it suddenly was the foundation of how all Web 2.0 tied together. Twitter was texting, but it was online and could be integrated into ANYTHING.
You could post to Twitter which posts to Facebook and Linked In. You could write a blog and have the RSS feed post to Twitter which posts to everything else. The ability to reach hundreds or thousands of people with your thoughts was now in place. Now… was anybody listening or did they even care??
I will talk more about the ramifications and how it all ties together in my next post…
Twitter as plumbing. I like the term and it applies: http://theappslab.com/2010/01/07/twitter-as-plumbing/
The concept is really about Micro Blogging and not so much about the brand name “Twitter”. The concept of succinct short burst of information that can be filtered being the real beauty of the thing.
Example of non-Twitter micro blogging: http://identi.ca/
Great post!
Well laid out, Andrew. In regards to number of followers obsession I have few comments to add. I always believed that numbers don’t really matter on Social Media networks (on the contrary, I have seen people just obsessed in increasing the numbers by following many so in turn, they follow them back).
It is very important to have an organic growth in followers who are interested to communicate and share similar kind of information and keep up with other updates (mostly local and businesses of interest).
On the good side, I did meet and got to know many connections who eventually turned into friends or business clients. Social Media indeed is a great vehicle to share quick information and to reach out to people around the globe if pursued in the right (organic way). It also gives me great opportunity to read many articles when I am on the go or waiting at some place, on my blackberry.
Just my thoughts.
@itvibes
The beauty of all this is the open flow of data, which allows developers to build integrations. Twitter itself does not post to Facebook and LinkedIn, but developers have used APIs to allow this, making the overall experience better for users.
I believe Twitter understands this and it’s place online. In talking with a fellow IT pro this weekend- he recounted a story where his old firm tried to be Facebook and drive people to their site rather than just be an integration point. The APIs are making the apps that sit on these platforms (Twitter, Facebook) far more important then the websites themselves.
Great comment! Sorry I have been slow to get back.
My old business partner told me that he tweets with people all over the world about development. He has great relationships with many people and then has the opportunity to meet them in person after talking with them for years. Kinda cool…
Awesome post, sir!
I love the link. I used this in a conversation I was having with a group of people last week. I really like the analogy- and I love to use”micro-blogging.” Glad to know the technology can be more generalized and not specific to Twitter.