Twitter’s Utility: In the Eye of the Beholder
With the likes of Oprah, the NBA and CNN all pushing Twitter to the masses, the greatest fear of every tech elite and early adopter is being realized: the mainstream is starting to catch onto the Twitter phenomenon. Paradoxically, recent research by Nielsen Online found that more than 60% of Twitter users have stopped using the micro-blogging service after one month. I believe the reason is two-fold: these users didn’t have friends on the service (yet) so they were tweeting into an echo chamber and most important, they weren’t able to fully understand or derive any utility from the service.
Twitter asks a simple question: What are you doing? Yet this seemingly simple question becomes complex when we try to derive utility from it. Does it matter what my friend, coworker or stranger is having for lunch or thinks of some movie? On the surface, the answer is no. But just below is where all the magic happens. What makes Twitter so unique amongst its social media compatriots is its ability to allow anyone to seek out conversations they find interesting and relevant and engage in them. In no other platform do they have this type of immediate access to experts, pundits and knowledgeable individuals on any topic imaginable.
So the next time your friend asks what Twitter’s all about, tell them to think of it as a blank canvas, where they get to paint their own masterpiece. Or as my mom used to say, “you get out only that which you put in.”
Tags: Social Media, Twitter
May 6th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
As a filmmaker, Twitter has been not only the only social network to meet-up socially and/or to truly network. But that’s not the end all. As a filmmaker with a web site, click-thru traffic is often two fold over Facebook in terms of self-promotional links to new works and commentaries.