Thoughts on Twitter
Another in what's turning out to be a regular series in client 'research notes' (ok, in this case, a casual email) I've decided to republish.
I was asked what I thought about Twitter and it's potential, or rather the concept of Twitter, for business use.
(I should have restricted my reply to 140 characters)...
Why it works
I think Twitter works well, because i) it's centralised and so it's easy to pay attention to 'flow' and for them to create ceasy connections between users ii) because, by design, it's blogging restricted to SMS length writing, and iii) they've given easy access to build lots of services around/throught it, and people can easily 'hack' it (e.g. the use of hash tags to identify 'tweets' on a shared topic).
It's too much aggro to write long posts, but quick blurts of status information, throwaway comments, etc. are pretty easy - that's why I think people like using it.
Utility
I scan it once or twice a day to see what my friends have been mentioning; friends who do use it often have an app open, which I find intensely distracting.
You could argue it's just a load of trivial sms type messages; and you'd be right - but when it's your family/friends/hero making those comments, then it becomes relevant.
I found it super useful when at conferences - I want to see quick thoughts, location, status from a bunch of people at a glance; Twitter is fantastic for acting as a central hub.
I've noticed a lot of companies/people use it as an alternative to email to provide updates and 'promotional' info, which by it's nature is opt-in vs. say, email.
Business Model
There's been a lot of conversation on the web about this.
I think Twitter will sell pro 'data mining' accounts with alerting and demographic breakdowns for PR firms and companies who want to track brand mentions and velocity through a influential groups.
They could charge individual users for retaining 'tweets' past 30 days, or for extras like image uploads etc.
And there's good old advertising...
I think the most interesting model would be the pro accounts for PR firms/brands...
And I'd definitely check out this article - it's a good insight into Twitter's popularity from Tim O'Reilly, a smart thinker.
In my original email, I forgot to mention SocialText's 'Signals' which they describe as a Twitter-like messaging environment for organisations using their nifty Wiki platform.
