No question these days – Twitter is all the rage. You have to look no further than the presidential address the other day when the commentator ended the post-address comments by telling viewers that they were “continuing the conversation on Twitter”…
But look at what is going on. Celebrties are pouring on to Twitter like crazy. P. Diddy stated to Ellen DeGeneris the other day that it was great because it was a celebrity’s way to push out his message in an unfiltered way to his fans. And that is certainly how it is being used. For sure celebrities are making Twitter even more mainstream and even more popular. But look at how they are using it. Most are following less than 20 people and are being followed by over 100,000. Is this important – yes. Is it bad -probably not. Even Twitter-celebrities seem to be doing the same thing – followed by lots of people but only being followed by some. Obviously – it would be impossible to follow 50,000 people so it makes sense that people only follow select people. But does this change what Twitter is and what it will become?
What is the essence of Twitter?
It appears that is the key question. It is quickly evolving as a way for single – to – many short message communications with the ability for unfiltered feedback. This is different for sure from the concept of group communication and micro-messaging within a community. Is it a bad thing? No. But it certainly is a direction and certainly leaves an avenue for someone to come along and create the “New Twitter” which serves the exact opposite service – that of closer knit, online short messaging, instant communication. Will this new direction hurt Twitter – probably not. But will it leave an opening that will certainly benefit a newcomer – my bet is it will…
Hey Stephen,
Like the post and feel like I have to respond — it’s such a controversial topic but to me it’s a no-brainer. If you are looking to establish a community who you can tap for their wisdom, energy, insights … the other 47,900 folks who follow you really don’t count for much. It’s probably not worth it to sift through the responses. So for me, I feel good for a second that people are following me, but I’m selective about who I follow back because I want to protect my bandwidth. Are the people who have great thoughts about dating interesting?? I’m sure they are. But do I think they add value to me and my ‘thing’ right now, probably not.
I guess I feel like I can always go back to them later, but want to cultivate and nurture a closer community for now. Maybe TweetDeck, with it’s ability to create groups is another way to look at this — time will tell.
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