I, like everyone else I know and read in social mediaville, am still trying to figure out what's  so compelling about Twitter. I say "compelling" with a grain of salt because I don't always feel all that compelled to hang out there (though I do so more now that I'm using @Tweetdeck). On the other hand, I do go back pretty regularly to decide who to return follow, check out links and reply to message; I even tweeted my first conference last week and it did make me feel more connected as well as helped me meet new npeople. Most importantly, I'm always thrilled when I get a reply or direct message; it adds a little spark to my day. I think that spark is what is so cool about it, and so I'll add my voice to the hundreds of others who have already lauded, puzzled over and trashed Twitter.
Here's my basic takeaway; to the TwitTrashers, I say - chill out. Twitter isn't a business model, it's a social experiment - a people mashup - and what it reaffirms is that people are addicted to other people; they like to hang out with each other, do business, share stuff and otherwise find excuses to communicate. This is true of the social web in general, and the reason that I agree with Doug Shumacher that the whole web will soon be social. But when it comes to people addictions Twitter is like the social web on speed because it accelerates the "fan ego boost" phenomenon and puts people in direct conversation which is where true communication happens.
Twitter isn't a business model; it's a social experiment, a big people mashup being conducted over a cool technology of text networking that can emulate IM, but which has yet to demonstrate financial sustainability. I don't envy the Twitter guys who are trying to make a business out of it because it's like trying to commercialize the invention of the telephone ("POTS" for you old techies). The halting growth of email in the '80s and early '90's is also a decent model. Knowing a smidgen of the history there, the hard thing about commercializing broad network communications technology is that it's a three-sided tug-o-war game between the:
- end-user capabilities (Tweet-apps using functionality Twitter exposes in its API),Â
- the size and comprehensiveness of the broader user population and the personal/private networks within it, andÂ
- underlying network infrastructure capability (in this case a patchwork of Twitter servers and mobile providers' text networks).
There is no formula for all this to come together neatly and the business model for each of the players is largely dependent on the customer appeal and technical capability of all the others. Usually networks stumble into business success as a function of happy accidents wherein the user network becomes broad enough, the underlying technology capable enough and the end-user apps specialized enough to explode usage to the point the volume grows so that all the players can monetize micro-transactions somehow. We're not there yet on Twitter (by a long shot) and I don't know if Twitter's proprietary technology is unique enough to withstand the entry of competitors trying to figure out how to capitalize on the basic concept with targeted apps for verticals or enterprise. Frankly, I thought IM would go the same way about eight years ago and instead of seeing a broader infrastructure develop there, we're seeing it migrate into social software platform add-on capability, so it's possible Twitter may migrate the same way. If this is the case I hope Twitter is looking for a Yahoo!/AOL/Google host platform parent (AKA sugardaddy) because its growth rate is going to require some deep pockets to sustain itself.
Twitter's appeal is people. There are two dimensions to the people-pull of Twitter:
The Fan Phenom. Andy Warhol was so right. In many places on the social web - Twitter being a prime example - normal people can have "fans," anonymous strangers who follow them and (seem to) want to hear what they have to say. What an ego stroke. I admit it, I feel it, but I'm not fooled for a minute into thinking followers and fans really mean I'm all that great. I rely much more heavily on the quality of comments from people who's writings and observations I respect to gauge my greatness (which, by the way, is said very tongue in cheek.) Others are obviously more motivated by this ego stroke. Some deserve it (I won't name names because we all have our own list) and some don't.
But that's not the point, the point is that the fan phenomenon feels good - frankly on both ends. It's great to feel paid attention to and it's great to find cool people to pay attention to in return, especially when they engage in dialog with you (giving back a little of that stroke). And this little two-way ego boost is fuel to the fire which is becoming the Personal Brand phenomenon that Dan Schawbel has so effectively promoted. I like the personal brand wave for reasons other than simply career advancement and I may write more about it in the future. In essence what I find so interesting about personal branding is that it offers we humans a unique opportunity to co-create ourselves personally and professionally in a social context. I think it's one of the new tools we've been given to explore Maslow's Self-Actualization layer, even (especially?) in the face of Safety layer threats in the current economy.
The fan phenomenon is really bigger than this little quirk of attention neediness we all have bred into our psychological DNA, especially when we look at how the brands are applying it. On Twitter and Facebook we see "fans" opting in to receiving buy offers which turn into real money for some and new PR channels for others. Brands are still trying to figure out how to capitalize on this fan phenomenon as Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing reinvents itself, but social web fans offer new models of brand evangelism and the trend is absolutely worth watching closely.
It's conversational. For myself, this is what I find so appealing about Twitter and the social phenomenon in general. Twitter is called 'microbloging' because of its technology, but it's really more like networked texting because Twitter offers a true dialog - interaction coming in short sentences instead of speeches (e.g., blogs) and Q&A's (e.g., comments). Since it's so conversational it's easy to make friends quickly on Twitter. In my short time there I've made more "friends" (as distinct from acquaintances or followers) simply because we "talk" and our natural personalities come immediately to the surface as distinct from our blogging personalities, the ones we primp up, edit and post for eternity hoping to attract links, Google juice and referrals.
Now most of my Twitter friends are business contacts, but in a few cases I know that these are genuine friendships in the offing because we migrate social platforms, chatting on Twitter, IM, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog comments and email. Last week I even got a phone call and an in-person hello at a conference! Some of these folks I had "talked to" in other fora but when we "chatted" on Twitter it was easier to fall into discussion and discover that there was a more personal connection to explore. Will these contacts lead to new business? It's too early to tell, but since most of my business comes from personal referrals anyway, assuming that the law of networking and attraction applies virtually as well as in the real world, I'm upping my odds of new business with each new friend (if not each new follower).
So when I think about it, Twitter is like a gigunda (a technical term) chat/IM room that is unique in that each participant has a personal dialog filter so people can scan each other's tweet-blogs and get a sense of them as individuals at the same time they can talk privately, listen in on others and get up on soapboxes - all simultaneously. It does get a tad noisy, but isn't that the sign of a good party?
Conversation keeps me coming back to Twitter. I am exploring my own social experiment there, playing with the Law of Attraction (a tweet about which ended up putting me on someone's Ning page and attracting more friends, perhaps not coincidentally). I don't go trolling for followers but follow some of the people that follow me (i.e., I don't follow the ones clearly just trying to build their number of followers or with whom I feel no connection). Then I send out messages and @-replies I hope will entice those in my network who may become friends to chat back. Slowly but surely I'm drawing a small circle of friends into conversation and I find this very personally fulfilling and fun. My Twitter network is still growing by a couple of follows a day. I think that's cool and I love meeting all these new people and finding a very few who will enter my personal circle of friends because we happen to see a part of the world the same way.
So if you've tried Twitter and didn't get it - or haven't tried and don't want to - that's cool; but don't trash it just because it turned out not to be the party you thought it would be. If you are still trying to make it work, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@dtheus) so we can explore the social experiment together. If we share some work war stories, great! If we do business together, fantastic! If we become friends, even better!
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Photo: A mashup of some of my Tweeps
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