Comments on: Twitter: Where Nobody Knows Your Name–The Sequel

By: I am not alone in my dislike of Twitter - Dan Wilson’s Blog

I am not alone in my dislike of Twitter - Dan Wilson’s Blog — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:06:13 +0000

[...] dwilson on Dec.29, 2008, under rants Good, someone else gets it. I know Techcrunch and cnet etc. can’t get over Twitter, how cool and useful it is, and how [...]

By: Russ Somers

Russ Somers — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:11:23 +0000

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the argument here. It seems to me that Twitter and Facebook are good at different things – and because of that, their audiences are different in both size and demographic.

Facebook is great for staying in touch with established friends/family. But I haven’t made a single NEW friend or business contact through it. With Twitter I’ve connected with hundreds of new people, some of whom have become friends or business connections. And they are not all or even primarily in the Silicon Valley echo chamber – I’m in Austin, TX and my Twitter followers are scattered throughout the country.

The ‘test’ of asking random groups proves nothing unless you assume that the two companies are direct competitors. Try it with ‘Microsoft’ and ‘Oracle’. Then go tell Larry Ellison that he’s a nobody outside the Silicon Valley echo chamber.

That said, I do agree that the un-hip-ness of Facebook as everyone and their grandmother (literally) signs up does bode well for their long-term prospects.

By: dave mcclure

dave mcclure — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:24:22 +0000

Twitter mainstream relevance in about 1-2 more years (getting closer). FriendFeed, maybe another 1-2 on top of that, altho i expect them to get bought out way before then.

now, your point about Facebook — how times change, Mrs. Facebook-Apps-Are-Useless-Toys-Herself!

you’re quite correct, it’s *waaaay* mainstream. and even making a noticeable amount of money, altho everyone seems to think they’re still worthless while they’re bringing in $250-300M in revenue.

i would agree that people are taking their eye off Facebook & considering them old news when things are just getting very interesting.

(all this aside, i’m still addicted to all 3 services)

By: Peter Merholz

Peter Merholz — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 04:59:19 +0000

This post seems awfully shortsighted. Twitter’s user base is doubtless larger than either Blogger’s or Flickr’s was at the same age. I think Flickr is an interesting parallel — for quite a while, it was dinged as a darling of the digerati, and it definitely parlayed its cache with the A-List geeks to build early buzz. But becaues it was so useful, and so good, it grew and grew, and ended up swallowing Yahoo! Photos.

I’m not too worried about Twitter.

By: Paul Marcum

Paul Marcum — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:32:56 +0000

Yes, being the online media industry’s water cooler doesn’t mean that the part of the world that only uses one monitor at work will ever care enough to make the time for Twitter and the challenge remains that while it may hold a bunch of content with mainstream appeal in the aggregate (Mumbai/Election/Gaza citizen journalism) or specific application (Paris insider) it still takes a lot of heavy lifting at the right time to extract the content’s maximum value.

I would take Fred’s opinion a step further – not only is Twitter more like a blog than a social network, it’s best chance to succeed with a mass audience will be when they find more ways for that blog-like content to connect in a timely and efficient manner with users who don’t know that the content is there (or how to find it) and whose jobs don’t revolve around (or, egads, allow) constant chatter. While it may take a similar amount of effort to extract similarly valuable content from Facebook, at least there you can post pictures of your kids/dogs/vacations while waiting for it to appear.

By: Norbert Mayer-Wittmann

Norbert Mayer-Wittmann — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:59:49 +0000

Twitter.COM is just commercial twitter — it has no authority (a better paraphrase would be something like “babble”).

nmw

By: Kathy Keating

Kathy Keating — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:23:43 +0000

Yes, I’m following the Twitter movement and am listening to the hype and applaud the momentum. I’m just not seeing the hype match reality yet and there have been some solid articles (like Kara’s) on the subject. Yet if you speak out, you’re condemned for ‘not getting it.’ I see value in Twitter and its instant updates for sure. However, I’m a bit tired of getting followed by folks who want to sell me goods — mktg services, sex toys, etc — and actually continue to pitch me off Twitter when there’s nothing in my profile that would prompt a sales pitch of any kind. We’ll see if Twitter continues to be the next big thing or it falls into the hype camp of Second Life from a few years ago.

By: Dave Johnston

Dave Johnston — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:41:35 +0000

Hi Kara…enjoy your work.

Less than 24 hours ago I had a long lunch with friends that included the head of communications for a major premium audio company that happens to be located nearby.

I noticed that they had an “official” Twitter account that was used sparsely and somewhat awkwardly (no human identified with the account), so I brought the subject up.

She still didn’t really know what Twitter was. I had to explain the service (which is a heavy task at a table of zero users*), how it has grown, who is using it, etc.

They’re on Twitter. And had no idea why, really.

Nobody knows about it. It’s effectively a non-factor outside of the Valley tech industry, coastal artsy types, and niche SEO marketing folks.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a great service. I love it. But it’s just a blip on the radar at this point.

* The table also included the #2 morning radio guy in Indy (young local demo), and he also had no clue about the service. All Facebook, all the time for his crew.

By: Barry Graubart

Barry Graubart — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:17:40 +0000

Great post, Kara.
I use Twitter and perhaps 20% of my professional social network use it, while close to 0% of my personal network are Twitter users.

But a number of the non-Twits (?) reply regularly via Facebook to my Tweets and I would expect some of them to migrate in the coming year.

In the meantime, anything to keep the self-absorbed Tweeterati (Arrington, Scoble, Loic, etc) from determining who is an authority is a big win.
Those who believe that group should be the arbiters of “Twitter authority” should go back and re-read the posts they all penned in the days preceding the release of Iron Man (or Wall-E).

By: Shripriya Mahesh

Shripriya Mahesh — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:10:16 +0000

The issue is not is Twitter relevant or not – it is a question of degree. And I agree that the chatter far outweighs the impact.

By: Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:51:02 +0000

I am deeply impressed with Twitter and all instant status and news delivery stuff.

I just don’t think the hype cycle is a good idea for it.

The tell is exactly right.

By: Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:49:28 +0000

I agree completely and it would be interesting.

Also silly touting how Twitter is the new breakthrough in news delivery.

What about cell phones?

By: Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:47:50 +0000

I am all for removing gatekeepers. Which is the point of how ridiculous this tweet authority is.

By: Kara Swisher

Kara Swisher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:46:18 +0000

Oh, we’d do worse! But ATD is not being touted as the best thing since sliced bread by the echo chamber.

And the old Google-did-not-make-$$ argument! Unfortunately, so far that’s only worked for, um, Google!

By: garrick schmitt

garrick schmitt — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 17:39:11 +0000

I’m a pragmatist when it comes to emerging technology myself, but the study of 1000+ “connected consumers” that we conducted at Razorfish in ‘08 has much more optimistic numbers for both Twitter and other social media services.

Stats here:

http://feed.razorfish.com

Twitter inflection point discussion here:

http://is.gd/bbHJ