Twitter: We Gave You the Heads Up in May 2007!

If you39re a luddite who isn39t interested in twittering about your commute or heading out for pizza you39re missing the point Failing to Twitter is like refusing to believe that TV had a future Twitter is a new communications medium and if you39re ignoring it you39re missing your best opportunity to stay in touch with your friends family company industry nation world and universe In May 2007 we gave our readers a heads up preview of what Twitter was to become featuring an exclusive interview with Twitter founder Biz Stone In case you werenamp8217t paying attention weamp8217re reprinting it here Orignally published May 23 2007Twitter is the widget du jour At the recent South by Southwest conference the Technorati simultaneously embraced the platform while trumpeting its arrival en masse The service is a microblogging platform that moves us beyond RSS Via a range of platforms Web SMS and soon chat and email one person is transformed into a publisher or broadcaster Conversely you can subscribe to a network of friends or a public figure like Barack Obama to receive periodic updatesVNU39s BuzzMetrics tracks consumer attention in all its glory Twitter is certainly on its radar VP Marketing Max Kalehoff terms the service quotnew and dynamicquot with the caveat that as platforms do come and go it39s premature to pass judgment on Twitter That said Kalehoff indicated that BuzzMetrics39 chief computer scientist thought highly enough of the platform to invite its founders to keynote a recent conferenceTwitter comes with a pedigree Its founders created blogging platform Xanga worked on Blogger which Google acquired in 2003 and created podcast aggregator Odeo Cofounder Biz Stone in an exclusive interview with Jack Myers Media Business Report attests that usability was Job Number One quotEarly on in the process we decided that we wanted our API to be accessible to even beginner developers and for it to be device agnostic Of our users we would ask just one question 39What are you doingquot39 And for validation on Twitter39s usability there39s no higher blessing than high marks from Jakob Nielsen who recently gave it an quotAquot as opposed to MySpace39s C for being quotfocused on the core functionality of the servicequotStone believes that Twitter has taken off like a rocket because it coincides with the trend for more open and transparent communication On Twitter he has observed a few brands not only broadcasting FoxNews and BBC Persia but engaging like Delta Airlines While some might characterize Twitter as a disruptive technology it is at the same time an unmediated pulse checkTelevisionEarlier this spring Twitter sponsored a behindthescenes at the Oscars Soon after the director of Fox39 Drive twittered during the show39s premiere Stone found that the platform quotcreates a compelling connection between you and the people behind a show without taking you out of itquot And when the show is off say after all of the season finales it keeps the universe of the show in the forefront Stone gave kudos to Heroes and its Web presence but still saw a place for Twitter For the fan quotyou are going about your business multitasking It39s almost ambientquotMarketplacesStone is quick to assert that quotWe are not building a tool for marketers A tipping point is when users find a good use not when marketers find it usefulquot That said as the culture moves away from private email IM has already overtaken it he envisions a path for Twitter quotproviding marketers some infrastructure for creating their economiesquot It39s still nascent but he has already seen among Twitterers that the phenomenon of crowdsourcing has morphed into friendsourcing Sort of a mashup of Linked In and craigslistJustinTime ContentCorey Clayton the former online journalist for the Lancaster News Era believes that Twitter is the perfect solution for an editor trying to keep track of reporters in the field One can imaging that Twitter which has already been deployed in the emergency response field is perfect for breaking news from market closings to jury verdicts While Twitter has had to grapple with a 140character limit it was wise enough to build in support for tinyurl amp8211 a service that creates an alias for a long urlData mining Fans have built Twitterfan a Wiki that is both a depository and a forum And due to Twitter39s simplicity there has been a rush to create Twitter enhancements One that should have allure to marketers is Twitterment created by eBiquity Research Group It effectively weaponizes Twitter turning it into a formidable buzz tracker even creating onthefly visual representation In seconds I can compare the buzz between Heroes and 24 finding 24 can39t hold a candle For those who worry about their privacy Twitter has a quotProtect My Updatesquot box that opts out posting in the public timelineAnd just how will Twitter turn a profit As the marketplace has embraced SMS Twitter promises to further imprint texting into the global psyche 35 percent of its market is international and Biz reports that Twitter is quotpushing forward directly with relationships with cell phone carriersquotTwitter39s community is passionate Out of the box it has the brand love we see among Apple users in MiniCooper drivers Traditional publishers who are breaking news and offering unique content E39s critic Kristin Veitch twittered during the Upfronts will ultimately attract the most quotfollowersquot and the news cycle if Twitter takes hold could evolve from 247 to 6060 as in minutes and secondsInformation Week recently compared Twitter with seven other competing services giving Twitter the thumbs up for ease of use The magazine also singled out Swarmit as the most business grade application with the best tools for collaboration While Twitter is deliberately too limited in scope to answer everyone39s needs its breakout success will enable innovation much of it by users

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Twitter: We Gave You the Heads Up in May 2007!

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