It's been a busy week for news this week, but one thing that struck me was the amount of discussion in the press in the UK about Twitter. It started with the broadsheets: on Tuesday, the Guardian asked What are you doing and then on Wednesday the Independent asked Why are we still hearing so much about Twitter. But perhaps today's article was most interesting, when the Sun asked if you Fancy a twitter with Britney.
The fact that the Sun is now talking about Twitter has great significance for its uptake. Whilst the Guardian and Independent have been talking about Twitter for sometime, they have a combined distribution of just over half a million readers. The Sun on the other hand is the UK's best read newspaper, with over 2.5 million people reading it every day. It has been proven to provoke strong emotions and have great influence - from their iconic front-page on the day of the elections in 1992 which many claim contributed to the defeat of the Labour party, to the fact that many people in Liverpool still boycott the newspaper after their reporting of a tragedy in 1989. The Sun is perhaps one of the most influential and widely read newspapers in the UK.
So why does this matter and what does it have to do with Twitter?
Whilst many people may be using Twitter, it only becomes really useful as a social media tool when it starts to meet mass adoption. Just like the first fax machine, or the first use of email, Twitter and other social media tools become more useful and more rewarding the more people that use them. They will only really come into their own when they stop being niche and start being popular. To date, I don't think that Twitter has been 'popular' in this, and the common, meaning of the word. It has been something that a large group of people have used and got benefit from, but this group has to some extent been restricted or limited - people who share certain interests or common characteristics of some kind.
The fact that the Sun is now reporting about Twitter suggests that it is starting to gain the kind of mass, or popular, influence that will see it really come of age. Other suggestions of this mass influence include reports that Jonathan Ross, a recently controversial comedian and chat show host in the UK, will use Twitter as part of his Friday Night with Jonathan Ross show when it begins again in a couple of weeks. This is a show that regularly receives around 5 million viewers, perhaps one of the most watched chat shows in the UK.
Social media tools become most useful when they become popular and mainstream. We know that this is happening when they are talked about and used in mainstream media. Twitter seems to have taken a big leap forward in this regard in the UK this week. Perhaps 2009 will be the year it makes it.
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Some more reading
- Twitter and Facebook / Apples and oranges
- Twitter set for its mainstream telly moment on Jonathan Ross's comeback show
- Twitter in UK newspapers - micro-blogging hits the mainstream
- Twitter celebrities Barack Obama and Britney Spears joined by Church of England bishop
- Clarkson on Twitter?
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