This is the presentation I’ve just delivered at the Don’t Panic Guide to Social Media at the Barbican Centre. Check out the hashtag #dontpanic
WTF is Twitter and why should I care?
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Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
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Brad Williamson - The Virtual Biographer™
I’m sorry, but Twitter will never be a MAINSTREAM success. It’s only amusing for public figures, fans of public figures, “social media experts”, and people who enjoy having substanceless relationships with people they’ve never met before.
Right now, Twitter is all hype and no substance.
P.S. Nice slide show Stephen. Seriously, you did a good job with it
Honza
Stephen,
The slide show is really cool! I love the case of April Dunford – she handled it in a very mature manner. It’s great that you mentioned #PRfail as well; it is a great source for the PR pros.
Brad, why do you think that Twitter won’t make it to the mainstream? Statistics show that the number of adopters is rising.
Brad Williamson - The Virtual Biographer™
Hey Honza!
I believe that people are attracted to social media platforms where there are audiences ready to hear them speak. Currently, the typical Internet user has the audience they care about (friends, family, etc.) on their Facebook profile. So why bother setting up a Twitter account where none of their friends are? Not only that, but if you do have a close friend or two on Twitter, you can barely formulate a full sentence in your correspondence with them. Where’s the fun in that?
Now, like I said above in my previous comment, if you are a public figure, a fan of certain public figures, a “social media expert”, or someone who enjoys weak conversation with people you’ve never met before, then Twitter is probably quite entertaining to you. If that’s the case for you (it is for me
, then more power to ya – enjoy yourself. But if you’re Joe Blow Internet user (aka the Net’s “mainstream” populous), you might sign up for an account, try to learn how to use it, quickly realize no one you know is on there for you to interact with, and then leave it in a static state for the rest of eternity.
…That’s why I don’t think Twitter will ever go “mainstream.” It’s simply not for everyone.
Honza
Brad,
Thanks for giving us the critical perspective on the Twitter hype. I definitely agree with you on the lack of average Internet users on Twitter. That has been a problem for quite a time, and it is not going to be resolved, unless Twitter integrates with other social network or more users join in. At this point, media are pouring more oil in the fire by raising awareness about this platform.
Concerning the current user base, there might be a category you have omitted. That is people, who use Twitter as a knowledge base. Even though it’s only 140 characters, there are some tweets linking to very useful resources. It works like a social bookmarking service with the added value of being able to talk back.
I know you have your doubts about fitting a meaningful bit of conversation into 140 characters, but Twitter is more about starting and sustaining relationships rather than developing them. All in all, it’s a matter of philosophy and outlook, and we can always agree to disagree.
Brad Williamson - The Virtual Biographer™
You’re definitely right in how Twitter can be a catalyst to the development of more meaningful relationships outside of the social network, but I simply don’t think that’s a benefit that can keep the platform alive for too much longer because there are so many other feature-rich networks out there that accomplish the same thing.
And ditto on it being a great tool for gathering news and information through the links people share, but aren’t there other sites that could/can accomplish the same thing, such as FriendFeed?
Great conversation, Honza! I know we disagree with things, but it’s been fun geekin’ out with ya
Amelia
Nice one – Twitter is one of those things that is so hard to explain, you just have to do in order to understand. I do a lot of “WTF is Twitter and Why Should I Care” presentations, but the best way is just to sit down with someone and start looking for thing that they are interested in, whether it’s football or food or social media (!), in my experience its only then they people start to get it.
The only thing that I’d add is that brands can also use Twitter for branded-entertainment, like CompareTheMeerkat.com
http://www.twitter.com/Aleksandr_Orlov
But then I would say that wouldn’t I.
But even taking off my VCCP-hat, Aleksandr on Twitter has been incredibly popular and successful.
Kevin O'Hare
If Twitter is bought up by Google then perhaps tweeting could become mainstream. Backed by Google, surely Twitter could fly much higher but is it really worth $250m? I don’t know how they add these numbers up.
Onetrouser
Maybe you should show Twouble with Twitters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w while talking “how to be a good twitizen?”