Happy New Year!
Twitter officially launched to the public in July 2006. By 2008, the universe of applications developed to enhance the Twitter experience was boundless. Not only was the ecosystem burgeoning with apps, the ability to track and manage the apps designed for specific purposes was elusive.
I spent the better part of Fall 2008 studying and organizing the available Twitter apps available for new marketing, community management, and customer service professionals. Once organized, I published Twitter Tools for Marketing and Community Professionals on October 17, 2008. I actively curated and modified the list for several months. However, the rate of new and abandoned applications was too much for one person to manage. Instead, I focused my spare time and resources on helping Laura Fitton (@pistachio)and her team launch Oneforty.com, a comprehensive social app directory for all things Twitter. I remain as an advisor to this day.
The Twitterverse (Alpha)
To commemorate the move, I partnered once again with Jesse Thomas and JESS3 to visualize the most effective and productive tools for Twitter. In May 2009, we introduced the alpha of the Twitterverse (below). Unlike the Conversation Prism, the Twitterverse was not originally designed as a transmedia object, simply a social object packaged in the form of an inforgraphic. The image never made it to 1.0 status as I dove head first into Engage and several other business endeavors. After all of this time, I felt the need to revisit this visual as it the Twitter ecosystem only continues to gain in prominence in our digital culture.
In 2010, I focused my limited free time on the refresh of the Conversation Prism. Once that project was completed, I then blasted off toward the Twitterverse to rethink the methodology and ultimately the visual of the Twitterverse with the JESS3 team. Here we are, 20 months later, and I can't believe this day is finally here.
Introducing The Twitterverse version 1.0
A new year, a new Twitterverse. 2011 marks the debut of the Twitterverse 1.0. Again, I revisited the landscape of useful Twitter apps designed for marketing, business, and service professionals. This time, we organized and positioned "representative" apps across 19 rings in the Twitter egosystem over the previous 12. Like its sibling, The Twitterverse is designed as a transmedia object. It's available for free in a presentation-friendly format and also in high-res. For the first time, the Twitterverse is also available as a 22 x 28 poster.
With Twitter at the center of the stellar system, apps orbit at different rotations based on their design and functionality.
Ring 1: Branding
Ring 2: Geographics
Ring 3: Interest Graph
Ring 4: Dashboard
Ring 5: Event Management
Ring 6: Live Streaming
Ring 7: Geo Location
Ring 8: Relationships
Ring 9: Marketing and Advertising
Ring 10: Rich Media Ring 11: Communication Management
Ring 12: Research and Analysis Ring 13: Stream Management
Ring 14: Mobile Applications Ring 15: Trends Ring 16: Social CRM
Ring 17: Influence and Resonance
Ring 18: Twitter Search
Ring 19: Causation
Naturally with thousands of considerable apps available for Twitter, it's impossible to include everything. However, this is an evolving graphic, so please leave your ideas and suggestions in the comments section here or on Flickr.