DISQUS

Anthony Farrior · 11 months ago

I think because the platform is flexible, it will go mainstream. If a sportsfan just wants scores and highlights, it's easier to allow sms to your phone and follow sport tweets. If a young person wants to have a huge conversation with their closest friends, just choose to get updates from them and text/twitter away. If an emergency meeting is needed and some of your employees don't have email capable phones, sending a tweet to a select group will still be effective. These are just a few ways off the top of my head, what about those who calculate future use for twitter?

Scabr · 11 months ago

Good Wiki-blogging:)

Liz · 11 months ago

I tried to explain Twitter to my elderly mother and she already knew about it because her news stations said they were going to send out weather & traffic updates via Twitter. I don't think she'll ever sign up as a user but it is amazing to me how much it has penetrated our culture. I just saw a CSI rerun where the forensic scientists checked someone's Tweetstream. Whether it'll expand to be 10 or 20 million users, I don't know but there definitely still is a buzz about it in mainstream culture.

I just wonder when the early adopters will grow bored and move on to the next new thing. I'm already detecting a certain amount of "Twitter fatigue", the tiring of constantly updating ones status on Twitter & Facebook. A counter movement among tech folks of being "unplugged"?

Mona N. · 11 months ago

Very true re: "Twitter-fatigue". Since I aggregate my Tweets across various networks, sometimes I manually delete them to omit spamming people. I also sync Facebook status messages with Twitter - sometimes it's welcomed, but 80% of my Facebook 'friends' are non web people, so they get annoyed. A lot of my real life friends have removed me from their Facebook, since mine is so noisy.

It just may be a while before the masses catch up with the enthusiasts. (to put it lightly) LOL Thanks for the feedback, Liz. :)

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

Love the story about your grandmother, and think it's very telling. As for Twitter fatigue, I was a relatively early adopter, moved on from it after an early obsession, but eventually came back to it in a big way. I don't know if other people have or will have the same experience, but it does seem to be maintaining its momentum very nicely, particularly since it solved its frustrating performance issues.

Mona N. · 11 months ago

I disagree, Eric. What features have they implemented to make the user experience better? The non tech person has no mercy and doesn't care about "fixed server side issues". And subtle UI changes don't mean a thing. BREAKING NEWS: THE SQUARE BUTTON IS NOW ROUND. WOW. - to me, that is unacceptable and I really don't understand why Twitter gets as much support as they do. But it is what it is.

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

Well, I get that perspective but I'd point to fact that Twitter continues to experience growth and it does get tremendous support by way of of the hundreds of applications built on top of the Twitter API. So maybe Twitter doesn't need to add a lot of additional tools (they did I believe create election.twitter.com, which was pretty cool)?

Mona N. · 11 months ago

Growth, yes, but we're talking mainstream. Sure it's maintaining its momentum, but in order to go "mainstream" as in Facebook, Myspace, YouTube level they need to make it more user friendly. There are MANY people who do not know how and _which_ third party publishing tool to choose. How will Twitter respond to the needs of those? Or is it up to the businesses to train users? How DOES one explain: Hey, in order to use this potentially awesome site you can download this or use a Firefox extension, if you ahve an iPhone there are 9837593478534 apps to choose from - do you want to pay? If so X and X feature will be included. OH you have a BlackBerry? Well then use Twitterberry or just use the web base bla bla bla. We (tech savvy) understand, sympathize with their hurdles, and know about APIs but will a 'mainstream user'?

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

I see Twitter as doing just fine without all of that stuff. That's the beauty: it's simple and easy to get started, and then all of the other services and add-ons are out there to be discovered if you want them. I think many mainstream users won't want them.

Think about it -- there are 7,001 services out there with more features than the base Twitter platform. More stuff, more tools, more features doesn't necessarily help.

Now that said, you bring up a good point about making all of the "other stuff" easier for the people who do want them easy to access. Would be cool to have a all-in-one application that lets you go in and one-click to one's heart's delight to utilize all of the Twitterverse tools.

Mona N. · 11 months ago

"7k + services and how many are truly mainstream? And don't get me wrong, I hear you. My question is how do you think a non-tech savvy person sees Twitter. Oh! Here's a personal tid-bit: So last year, I was traveling. A LOT. One week I was in LA, next in Boston, then in Manhattan, back to LA, SF - literally I was on the go, all the time (for work). My non-tech savvy friends would IM / email / text me all the time asking: Where are you now?
So I signed up for Twitter, got them all on. Mind you, this is before Facebook blew up and I wasn't on any aggregating services. Anyway, I had one HECK of a time explaining Twitter to them. They signed up, played around for like 15 seconds, nothing caught their attention, so they either closed their accounts or rotting in deadspace. Almost all my Twitter 'friends'? Are Soc Net people. And one of my biggest gripes with Twitter is your third point hahahha! WHY does a site need a third party publishing tool in order to use it?"

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

Taking your example further, do you think if Twitter managed to seamlessly integrate third-party tools into Twitter profiles (and presumably make them super easy to add/use) that would be the thing that puts Twitter on the road to mainstream adoption?

I can't help being skeptical. I think that some people are going to "get* microblogging, and some people won't. That said, if we're using 10M as a barometer I do think that Twitter can achieve it in the next 12-18 months pretty much as it is.

Mona N. · 11 months ago

Integrating third party tools into Twitter profiles will be a disaster. What about AIR and Silverlight apps? Where would the apps go? Who will do the testing? How would that work? Can you imagine how slow Twitter's UI will be? The Ajax already messes up FireFox, with even more code added on there it will end up a hot mess. I highly doubt it would happen.

Micro-blogging, yes. Twitter, not at its current state. And I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. ;)
Nice discussion, Eric!

Louis Gray · 11 months ago

Mona, Twitter could have been seen as on the verge of extinction
several times this summer. That they have virtually eliminated
downtime is night and day from when they were in imminent peril. In
the meantime, they've gained significant user and awareness momentum
and have cemented their role as the standard. Have they innovated a
lot since, or reached out to the damaged developer community? Not
really, and they will need to.

Mona N. · 11 months ago

The bazillion dollar question, LG. How will they take this opportunity
to grow even bigger and can the businesses keep up? Because
ultimately, the 'bigger names' per se, are going to pull the masses
and will that be enough to keep them? Only time will tell, but I still
say no -unless they (Twitter) makes some vast improvements.
Thrilled you joined our discussion. :)
m.
Sent from my phone.
Please pardon typos.

Louis Gray · 11 months ago

Your comment on how some news stations are sending updates via Twitter
is a great one. Wasn't that long ago when people were getting used to
e-mail alerts, so this is the next level.

As for early adopters moving on to the next big thing? That has
happened in some respects, for folks who prefer FriendFeed. But we
still use e-mail, Google, etc. Twitter and FriendFeed both have the
potential to be category owners and be around for the long haul.

Snow Vandemore · 11 months ago

I'm an old school baby boomer, I'm not a techie or a geek by any stretch. I didn't even start a blog until just this September, so I'm always late getting comfortable with the new. I believe that is true for most people who are "civilians" as Eric Berlin so aptly describes us.

Cell phones, laptops, broadband -- we don't even know what we don't know most of the time. It's just a matter of trying Twitter, maybe dropping it for awhile in disgust, and then picking it up again before we regular Joes and Josephines "get it." I get it and I like it. Where else can I speak directly with people like Chris Brogan and Darren Rowse, not just about social media, but about family, food and funny videos? Twitter is the only place I know where I can do that and feel like I'm part of a large family. It's not if, but when, it goes mainstream.

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

Snow, you bring up a great point in getting the chance to talk directly to people that you like and admire on the Internet. I remember my early days on Twitter, observing conversations (and at times arguments!) in more or less real time between the likes of Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer, and so forth. The experience felt intimate, as though I was in on a private conversation that was obviously quite public in reality.

hidama · 11 months ago

Many users wonder at how people couldn't know about Twitter until they realize the news they read is from their Twitter stream -- it's a very small, tight-knit community. It seems as though Twitter has not broken into the college life scene and still remains as more of a professional tool. Once it is associated with SMS and personal information sharing Twitter will sky-rocket to the top. There is a good question of whether early adopters will drop Twitter once it's mainstream -- since we decide who we follow, I think Twitter will not loose too many people once it's mainstream as we control the updates we receive. I do think Twitter users should be wise about who they follow; I think many of us suffer on Facebook with bombardments from people we felt that we had to friend. If we only follow who we'd like, we might not have big numbers but we'll have meaningful interaction.

I'll leave the musing of monetizing to the Twitter CEOs.

Liz ponders something important; will there be "a counter movement among tech folks of being 'unplugged'?" There comes a point where the social networks are addictive and where you spend most of your time online. I think there will be a counter movement against technology with people seeking a balance between social networking and face-to-face interaction and device time and time away from tech out in nature. But will Twitter be one of those networks that are shunned? I don't think so. The minimal aspects of Twitter will preserve it as one of the technologies we will keep at our fingertips while Facebook, Myspace and even LinkedIn we will "take breaks" from.

farwyde · 11 months ago

I believe this will depend on two factors: (1) why one uses Twitter (2) interacting with others. I didn't quite understand what the hubbub was about either but thought I would try it out. I thought it was kinda lame at first when I started just posting status updates and such (since I perceived it to be similar to the Facebook status update feature). It wasn't until I started following more people and then commenting (i.e., interacting with them) that I understood what the fun was all about. Sharing information and commenting back and forth has become a time-consuming event on my part. In fact, there are several people that I would now consider as friends that I found through Twitter. I am also amazed at how fast information travels through Twitter. I have heard information on Twitter before I heard it on the news many a time.

The downside is definitely the UI. I think if Twitter takes a look at the major 3rd party apps and implements their best features, this would be a major improvement in their site.

I will be curiously following to see what happens in the "mainstream" with Twitter.

Matthew Stevens · 11 months ago

Twitter is mainstream if media outlets such as Fox News and CNN are using Twitter. Mass Media such as these aren't cutting edge in my opinion. Having said that a lot of people still haven't heard about it. When the local media outlets actually starting using it then there is no doubt Twitter is mainstream.

Alain Yap · 11 months ago

Don't think that Twitter is too geeky all all. It may be that the premise of publishing 'what you're doing' is at the onset too much for the beginner. But note that in terms of 'getting more out in the web, with less' and really as a communication tool to rival email use, Twitter really brought out the power of SMS and extended its reach to traverse both mobile and computers via the web 2.0 tech.

Best.
Alain

funkyboy · 11 months ago

When I explain twitter to non social web2.0 savvy people I often get a "What for?" as reply. People don't get the _sense_ of twitter.
They probably get more the sense of something like Facebook, which "allows me to reconnect with people I knew time ago".

I think this is the main con of twitter. People are not yet able to find a reply to the question: "What for?" When such a reply will be clear, Twitter will go mainstream.

My 2cents.

Louis Gray · 11 months ago

One of the hardest parts about getting Twitter is that people use it
for such diverse reasons. There's no clear method to the madness.
While I may use it primarily to poll an audience, or send blog
updates, others will tell you their latest meal, or curse for who
knows what reason. The resulting cacophony can be enough to scare
people away. Among the mainstream, I've seen people overwhelmed by
Facebook. Twitter could be that much more noise.

Craig · 11 months ago

It's tough because different people use Twitter for different reasons. In the tech world, it's a small niche, a lot involved with sharing links, advice, stories, shout outs, etc. But for the average person, they probably don't want to get so involved in that way. More of their Tweets are general noise, and won;t have the same use as someone else, especially if they don't have a blog or site to push out. If the college kids can get hooked, then it will go mainstream.

funkyboy · 11 months ago

Yes. I agree. Another technique to get mainstream is to positively "shock" a group or a category (like college kids) and let them spread the word.

hankito · 11 months ago

I am of the mindset that things that go really, truly mainstream end up getting 'tainted' much like what companies have tried doing with Youtube, its still cool but its just...not quite the same. Law suites and all of that stuff floating around while companies who really don't care about what people want try to either kill it because its a threat or buy it, run it for a bit then kill it and promote their own social networking the way they want it.