Twitter Isn’t That Bad (or Inane)
Update: Dave Winer has a post looking at whether Twitter could be decentralized given how its performance issues, highlighted by how Steve Jobs’ keynote yesterday pretty much took down Twitter.
If the question is meeting demand and scaling the business, Twitter needs to raise a lot more venture capital, which could mean it may have to come up with a viable enough business plan to attract some serious support. Or perhaps it needs to find a suitor (bring on the usual suspects: Yahoo, Facebook, etc.), which has the resources to handle Twitter’s explosive growth.
Larry Dignan has some thoughts about whether Twitter really needs to be industrial strength. One thing Dignan suggests that I find to swallow is his contention that “Twitter is a classic case of a neat little tool that wasn’t built to scale but now has to because it has become a big deal”.
I think all entrepreneurs dream about building something big so it’s like its popularity should come as a surprise to anyone involved. The question is whether they are truly prepared for it to happen so quickly.
There are suggestions that Twitter was built to sell to Google but that plan pretty much went out the window when Google acquired Jaiku.
And now back to today’s earlier post:
After refusing to climb on board the Twitter bandwagon (dismissing it as a self-indulgent, inane vehicle), I finally gave in two weeks ago. And much to my surprise, it’s not bad, not bad at all.
So far, the best part of Twitter is how it gives you access to a network of people who can share ideas, answer questions, and highlight interesting blog posts and other content. It has become another way to consume information, providing a solid complement to tools such as Google Reader, Facebook and del.icio.us. It is also another way to distribute content through tools such as TwitterFeed.
The challenge with Twitter is figuring out how you want to use it. Twitter users fall into several buckets: people (like me) using it as a professional/branding tool; people using it as a way to communicate with friends and family; and people just using it, and using it a lot.
It’s the last group that is most fascinating. These are people who clearly spend a lot of time - perhaps too much - on Twitter, and feel the need to talk about about anything - what they ate, where they’re working, what they’re watching/reading, what they think, etc. It’s like liveblogging about your life and/or a dynamic diary for anyone and everyone. Why these people feel the need to do it is, at best, puzzling and, at worse, troublesome but that’s just me.
In terms of my own Twitter activity, let’s just say I’m tip-toeing around to see how it can be used most effectively.
Like Facebook, it’s being used mostly as a professional/branding tool. In fact, my use of Facebook has plummeted since I started using Twitter - perhaps because Twitter is a new toy; it’s an efficient way to get new information; and my follow list is still manageable, while I’ve let my Facebook friend universe get completely out of hand.
In time, I’d like to explore other ways to leverage Twitter. From what I can tell, there’s a growing developer ecosystem and no lack of ideas from Twitter users on how to make the service even more compelling. If you’re using some cool Twitter tools, please let me know.
The other question is how Twitter is going to make money from all these users/developers but that’s another conversation for another day.
More: Dosh Dosh has a good post on 17 ways you can use Twitter.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I think you’re doing fine as Twitterer, Mark. Almost every Twitter notice I see from you has a link to a thoughtful post, much like this one. Keep on Twittering!
January 17th, 2008 at 6:46 am
[...] also interesting to see people’s feelings about Twitter. Some people have just accepted it. some totally refuse to embrace it and some claim that it is too geeky. What about you? Do you [...]