A while ago, I was talking about how Twitter appeared to be on the downward swing.
It seems like I might have jumped the gun. Microblogging (link to Wikipedia article) seems like it’s here to stay – at least for the time being. On a recent trip to Italy, I used Twitter to keep my family updated as to my whereabouts and activities as I traveled, saw the sights, and ate great food.
Rohit has a great post about how Twitter can be very useful. It seems like more and more people are jumping on board the Twitter train, but only for specific uses (like traveling). Rohit became a Twitter believer after deciding to make an effort to update his account during an extended business trip. I’ve subscribed to the RSS feed of his account and will be interested to see if it continues to be updated now that he’s back in town.
My hypothesis is that Twitter will be used for what it is: a great one-to-many updating tool for unique events or situations (think trips, birth of a new baby, etc), but will be abandoned once people go back to their regular lives. I mean, really — how interested are you in the fact that I went grocery shopping yesterday, bought new slacks today, and plan on going to sleep early tonight?
Do you disagree? Set me straight in the comments.
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Looks like some people are agreeing with what I said earlier about Twitter.
Mat seems to think that Twitter won’t see 2008 and is starting a pool to see who can correctly predict its demise. For the most part, I think Mat and I agree — there’s really very little value that can be gained from using Twitter.
What is still untapped however, is the business application of this type of a tool. If the nice folks over at Twitter could apply this to a business situation (like I mentioned in my previous post), I think that Twitter could definitely see next year…
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…and it’s creating a huge amount of buzz. I’ve read reports that says that it’s:
- addictive
- a micro-blogger’s dream tool
- to blogging what the phone is to the pony express
Is it really that good? I had to try it out. I headed over to www.twitter.com, registered for an account, and linked it to my phone via SMS.
So basically, it’s a way to provide status updates to people who subscribe to your feed (via RSS or through the Twitter web site), very similar to “status updates” that Facebook already has. Those status updates on Facebook seem to be pretty popular, especially for mobile FB users who continually update them…
For the rest of us, I’m not sure how great Twitter’s going to be — at least in this form. What I really was hoping for was a way for me to post to my blog via phone. Guess what — I can. Blogger lets you do that. Thanks but no thanks, Twitter.
Okay, I guess that this will have some applicability for the same type of people who keep updating their Facebook status. What I’m excited about seeing is how a company can use this new “micro-blogging” to its advantage for marketing. Maybe a CEO micro-blog where he/she can just post cool ideas that they come up with — almost like a stream of CEO’s consciousness? What about a conference update tool? One person can sit in a session and post (and record) notes for other people who can read them on a computer or a phone. Hmmmm. This could be pretty cool… Revolutionary? I’m not sure — time will tell.
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