DOWNLOAD THE SHOW (playing time 10:18)
Twitter is demanding. It’s a constant river of information, the kind that media junkies love. It’s also the social network flavour of the moment. But will the majority of people coming onto Twitter learn to swim in that fast moving river?
Mentioned in this episode:
Popularity: 21% [?]
Add to iTunes
RSS/XML Feed
Related Articles
4 users responded in this post
[...] media has discovered Twitter. So what? As Jay Moonah tells us in his recent podcast, and here I am paraphrasing him according to my own interpretation, Twitter takes committment. [...]
It’s a very “traditional media” way of thinking that a popular tool is expected to be the only tool that survives. It’s also a very traditional way of thinking that we should worry if, say, Twitter becomes mainstream. People will always choose the method of communication they want to. Be it e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, sms or in person.
When the whole Oprah/Ashton/CNN events brought in a high volume of new users to Twitter in such a short time, I knew most of them would probably not “get” Twitter and abandon their accounts just as quickly. Unless, of course, the celebrities make for an engaging use of Twitter.
I doubt a mass exodus of new Twitter followers would spell the end of Twitter. Only when a better form of communication comes out that will. Heck, even *I* left Twitter for a few months when I couldn’t find a use for it back when I first signed up.
While the average person may not get Twitter, they will find something else that’s a better fit for their needs.
Giving constant attention to Twitter for it to be of any use is *probably* necessary but again, it’s the traditional way of thinking. No, I don’t need to read EVERYTHING in my Twitter stream but I do run the risk of missing things. Besides, some tweets get lost, users dropped for no reason, etc.
Which brings me to another point I’d like to make. Not everyone uses Twitter the same way as everyone.
Thanks Dan, some great thoughts. I think your last point is the big one for me: Twitter is a lot less ‘defined’ in terms of what it is useful for. It’s a mishmash of real people, fake people, feeds and who knows what, all tweeting different things for different reasons. Contrast this with Facebook where there are all kinds of rules: you must use your real name, you can’t have more than 5000 friends, companies can only use Pages, etc. While the social media earlier adopters sometimes bristle against these rules, the make it a more easily navigable world for the masses. That’s not a judgment on either model, it just is what it is. My point was really to say that Twitter may be limited by its model exist mostly outside the “mainstream,” despite all the recent broad attention. That isn’t necessarily good or bad, it just is.
“Twitter may be limited by its model exist mostly outside the ‘mainstream,’”
I think you described Twitter perfectly.
Leave A Reply
Please Note: Comment moderation maybe active so there is no need to resubmit your comments