Why the "Idea" of Twitter May Be More Important Than Twitter Itself - Steve Rosenbaum - MediaBizBloggers
As I land in Los Angeles for Jeff Pulver's now standing-room-only Twitter conference known as "The 140 Conference," I've been thinking a bunch about the emergence of the Real Time Web and how Twitter's fast growing network is an important indicator of a trend that extends far beyond the company or the product known as Twitter.
There's a chorus of "Twitter Deniers" that seem to almost vibrate with anger about what they think Twitter represents. Their rejection falls into two categories: a) I don't need to engage Twitter because it's a bunch of self-important publicity hounds broadcasting mundane nonsense, and b) I don't need to engage Twitter because none of my friends use it.
Category a) is almost all people of a certain age.
Category b) is almost all college students.
Which is to say that the folks who are tweeting and reading Twitter tend to be something like 25 - 48, techno 'thought leaders.' Ok, that's a generalization, but its pretty close to spot on.
What folks who ignore Twitter seem to feel is that the micro-blogging trend is somehow reducing ideas and writing from thoughtful longer pieces to increasingly shorter bursts of poorly written material. "Updates" replace ideas. While this may be true, it is more of a reflection of the fast moving, just-in-time delivery of our world than it is some trend that Twitter invented. Multi-tasking (or ADD if you prefer) existed long before Twitter did.
The important point here is that Twitter is the glue for what is rapidly becoming a 'roll your own' information ecosystem.
Both publishing and content consumption will be re-invented by micro-media publishing.
Here's why:
We're living in a world where the number of news sources is growing dramatically, despite all the doom and gloom that exists around the legacy news business. Events that you attend publish 'news' about panels and parties and keynotes. Groups you participate in have a running dialog of posts (via email lists or blog posts or both). Business verticals you participate in have a steady stream of 'news,' which includes both information about your field, and published news (press releases) about companies you may or may not care about. The live news stream of individual users of Twitter provide a filter (curator if you will) that helps manage the sheer volume of information being published in real time.
Who Tweets and Why
News Organizations: CNN, ABC, Reuters, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Postand more are all sending out tweets to alert followers to breaking news. The nature of the real-time Web's broadcast capability and readers' ability to opt in to real time notifications makes Twitter a hugely valuable notification service for both publishers and consumers.
Celebrities: Say what you will about Celebrity journalism and the paparazzi, if you're famous (or want to be) Twitter represents a powerful new way to talk directly to your fans without the filter or coloring of the media.
Brands and Consumer Products: Here too, the brand managers and customer service professionals who've been unable to speak to or hear from their customers are flocking to the Real Time Web to get a one-to-one relationship with customers. From Comcast to Midwest Airlines, keeping a digital ear to the ground is quickly becoming an essential way to catch customer service problems before they become a headline. And other brands like Zappos, Whole Foods and Starbucks are using Twitter to connect with customers - sending out micro-messages about their brand, their community, and timely news that routes around conventional advertising and media channels to reach consumers directly.
Though Leaders, Pundits, and Politicians: Of course there are the stars of Social Media who've adopted Twitter early and made it their digital home on the Web. But they're not alone. From rabbis to senators, public figures and community leaders are putting their thoughts and ideas out in the public sphere on the real time Web. Check them out for yourself: http://wefollow.com/twitter/rabbi and http://wefollow.com/twitter/politician.
Friends and Neighbors: While it's easy to say that you don't want to hear the nattering of everyday folks, the odds are some of your friends are the 'alpha' members of your world. Whether it's the high school buddy whose foodie recommendations always lead the pack, or the local PTA mom who's got the inside skinny on local school issues and schedules - odds are that there are folks who want to send out 140 character updates, and chances are some of them matter to you.
Why the real-time Web is going to need filters - and fast!
A few things are changing - and changing fast. More folks are "always on" - meaning, they're in front of, or holding a device, that is connected to the Internet. And in a fast moving, multi-tasking world, information is increasingly needed instantly and quickly obsolete. That means more and more folks are going to become real time publishers of information, thoughts, data, news and gossip. What we see now is a garden hose, compared to fire hose of data that's on the way. So, what will we need to manage this torrent of news, information, and data? Well, a look at the current Twitter readers is a clue. We'll need to be able to prioritize both the source, and the urgency of the information. For example, CNN will be tweeting both "Breaking" and "topical" news, as well as local, regional, national, and world. So you'll need to have a matrix of filters to tell CNN that a tweet that is labeled "World" and "Urgent" gets to the top of your feed and stays there until it's been read and dismissed, while a tweet that is labeled "local" and "urgent" with the tag "Transit" will fall in line with your data, but then be allowed to float down the data stream. (Yeah, it's bad that the MTA's 1 train is running late, but that info isn't important after the 8am rush hour).
So, what about the Twitter deniers?
OK, simply put - they're wrong. It's like going into Barnes & Noble and saying, "I don't like this book shop because they have too many books, why can't they just have the 'good' books I like." Twitter is the data stream; if you don't like what you're reading, then you aren't following the right people, or sources, or brands.
There's no doubt that Twitter is a bit overwhelming. But putting a digital printing press in the hands of anyone with a Web connection or a mobile phone is likely to increase the signal to noise ratio dramatically.
So my advice to you is that whatever your business or expertise, Twitter provides a new way to connect with your customers, to engage your potential customers, and to get critical competitive information about your space and interests.
The Real Time Web is fast becoming the speed of the Web. It's an exciting time in the information revolution - and the outcome is far from certain. What better time to jump in and help shape the future of ideas and information?
Steven Rosenbaum is the CEO and Co-Founder of Magnify.net - a fast-growing video publishing platform that powers more than 50,000 web sites, media companies, and content entrepreneurs to aggregate and curate web video from a wide variety of web sources. Currently Magnify.net publishes over 50,000 channels of Curated-Consumer Video, and is working closely with a wide variety of media makers, communities, and publishers in evolving their content offerings to include content created by, sorted and reviewed by community members. Rosenbaum is a serial entrepreneur, Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker, and well known innovator in the field of user-generated media production. Rosenbaum Directed and Executive Produced the critically acclaimed 7 Days In September, and his MTV Series Unfiltered is widely regarding as the first commercial use of Consumer Generated Video in US mass media. Steve can be contacted at steve@magnify.net Follow Steve Rosenbaum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/magnify
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