DISQUS

Ed · 8 months ago

"I am not sure how we missed it, but I think most of the early adopters missed the call on Twitter."

I am. The SV Anti-Twitter Brigade has been so obsessed with bashing Ev, Jack, and Biz for so long,
they've missed much more than this.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 8 months ago

Most of the LG team doesn't actually live in California, but you do have a point. Twitter's been a tech media darling for so long it's easy for us to bag on them.

robdiana · 8 months ago

I am surprised that nobody saw the celebrity angle. It was something that was talked about with web-celebs like Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte and others. Twitter allowed them to interact with more people than ever before. How did we not translate this to Hollywood celebrities?

Louis Gray · 8 months ago

Post by Rob Diana: http://www.friendfeed.com/robdiana

Joe Dawson · 8 months ago

'Hopefully we are wrong about their ability to make money as well..'

The service will definitely make money for the people behind Twitter but at what cost to the end user? Plenty of speculation recently that at some point Twitter will be aquired but what will emerge from the aquisition?

robdiana · 8 months ago

Given what has been happening in the last few months, I highly doubt that an acquirer would change much about twitter. If they did change something significant, they should be very careful about it.

Joe Dawson · 8 months ago

Agreed, I hope that any potential buyer would remain true to the core elements of the service and not look to open up the stream with the aim to get an instant return for their investment!

Tweet Feeds · 8 months ago

early adopters are like explorers, they love the adventure but never understand how to build a society. the skills required to find things are completely different from the skills required to develop sustainable technologies. the same thing is happening to FriendFeed now, only thing different is that its in real-time. It probably won't take as long as Twitter because the needs are there right now. Learn to remove your early adopter hat every so often ...

Rob Nelson · 8 months ago

Rob,

I'm not so sure that you were completely wrong about it. People are fascinated by their favorite celebrities, but it still remains to be seen how the Hollywood and TV celebs are going to use Twitter. It seems much more likely that it will be used as a means of broadcast, and not so much one of two-way communications with the stars.

I suspect that the celebrities will use Twitter just like they use any other fan media - to tell their fans what they're doing, and where to get more information, and other little tidbits about the stars lives.

It will take a truly adventurous star to take on the task of "early-adopter" and really have conversation with their fans in the ways that the web-celebs (like Robert Scoble) have done. The fact that the Hollywood, TV and other traditional media celebrities have mostly chosen to use ghost-writers (and publicists) to make their tweets tells me that this is how they'll continue to use it.

The public is fickle, and will move on to the next fad when this one dies down.

One of the things that had me interested in Twitter was just what you're saying - the two way interactions with "the stars" (not that I wanted that so much, but it was fascinating). I've quickly learned that this is just not the case. Not even the smaller YouTube stars are using Twitter in the way we might hope for two-way communications. Good luck having someone like @buckhollywood or @happyslip or @vprincess talk back to you on Twitter if you're not a star yourself. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, but I think that those will be the exceptions. (@mchammer comes to mind)

This lack of two-way communication is going to give other services (clones and the likes of FriendFeed) a chance to catch up.

If Twitter doesn't figure out it's technical issues, monetization, and give the stars an easier way to sift through the massive amounts of data in their streams (or encourage developers to do it for them) I think that the fans will be somewhat disillusioned, move on. They'll still listen to the stars there, just like they listen to the tabloids and Entertainment Tonight.

This is not to say that Twitter won't remain a viable, important part of the social networking landscape. It just means that Twitter won't enjoy the place of prominence that the hype wants to give it.

Without the features that you suggested that it needs (filter and better search mostly) people will depend on other services to be layered on top of it to make it usable. Especially as the noise and spam levels increase.

But.....I could still be wrong.

gregorylent · 8 months ago

could be said that nothing has changed .. just a few names got added, but the use is the same .. and the 2nd law of thermodynamics is of course doing its dance ... banality rules

Baxter Tocher · 8 months ago

I think this is missing the point.

Twitter is the almost like the new email. And how many celebrities regularly email their fans? Very, very few.

I think what some may have missed about Twitter when the service first started is the traction that it would gain when *ordinary people* started using it. Not early adopters, not celebrities. Just non-techy folks who want to communicate with each other.

Locally, at least, I've seen a big increase in folk I know, who aren't into following celebrities, starting to use Twitter - they just wanted a simple-to-use tool to be able to tell their friends and others what's happening with their lives.

And isn't that really what Twitter was supposed to be all about?

Rob Jensen · 8 months ago

I completely agreed with this post until you added "direct interaction". I think most new users are just curious and are using twitter in the same way they would pick up the latest People magazine. Some are actively tweeting out to celebrities but with so much noise how much of that is being read?

It wasn't long ago that I could tweet to or about an internet celebrity and get a response but even they can't respond to everyone.

As long as Twitter can keep up the media and celebrity buzz they will continue to grow but how much longer can it last? I would like to see the numbers for new sign ups vs tweets/users. I have a feeling a solid percentage of profiles are abandoned.

felix · 8 months ago

I don't think too many folks saw this sudden jump coming! :)

On the other hand, I think it's also important for social media early adopters to recognize that the mainstream is very different from them and will often use services in very different ways. I think there's almost no discussion about that amongst the social media luminaries... I went on at length about this a couple weeks ago. :) http://comments.deasil.com/2009/04/10/the-probl...

crisatunity · 8 months ago

In May of 2008 I declared Twitter a "fad" and that I wouldn't use it. I was dead wrong on both accounts.

To continue mattering past 2010 Twitter will have to morph into something different, but it's essential nature are probably here to stay.

Andre P. Siregar · 8 months ago

Rob is spot on.

Gunny Wallen · 8 months ago

Yes he is indeed. I never thought Twitter would go mainstream. I still think that after the initial explosion @Oprah caused has died down, Twitter will return to the 'niche service' it was when I found it months ago.

Araceli · 8 months ago

I still have RL friends on Facebook who ask, what is Twitter? *shame*

Ian May · 8 months ago

I find Twitter so much more engaging than Facebook, as on Twitter, I 95% follow for content, not the person; whereas on Facebook it's the other way around.

George Nimeh · 8 months ago

Around the same time, I listed Celebrity as the 2nd of 5Cs for using Twitter for business:
http://www.i-boy.com/weblog/2009/02/5c-on-using...

In the UK, Stephen Fry made it pretty clear that the mainstream would latch on to celebrity ...

@iboy

Rutger Blom · 8 months ago

Do you remember one year go we were discussing if Twitter would actually survive? Many of the early adopters (including me) were laughing and bitching at this unstable service with all its limitations. Oh how wrong we were...