Twitter, boring and mundane? I think not
4 01 2009
The Daily Mail newspaper has written a terrible article about Twitter and I thought I’d comment. The title of the article was How boring: Celebrities sign up to Twitter to reveal the most mundane aspect of their lives. How wrong could they possibly be? They completely missed the point I feel. (I hesitated actually linking to their site as it might drive traffic there, but did anyway!)
The article which took two people to write 24 paragraphs basically suggested that anyone who uses Twitter is a saddo. To be honest, the traditional media are feeling extremely squeezed with the massive uptake of social new media.
The fact of the matter, is that Twitter is a extensively used service, that, at the last guess put the number of users at 2.359 million, with over three-million messages sent daily. These figures are probably a tad conservative (a bit like the Mail, boom boom)
- Global visitors to Twitter rose almost fivefold to 5.57 million in September from a year earlier. Nov 12, 2008, Comscore via BBC.
- Locations (cities) with the most tweets, Tokyo is the most popular city, Real TimeTwitter Local
- Twitter is dominated by newer users - 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008, An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day, 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers, 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all, Dec 08, State of the Twittersphere
- (Credit: Web Strategy, Jeremiah Owyang)
Here in California, Twitter is widely embraced from public services, to schools, to theatres, to offices, to news outlets - and, of course, personally.
I believe that a public figure (such as a politician) using Twitter allows more transparency in the day-to-day workings of an individual. Would you believe something a person says, thinks or feels first-hand that they publish through Twitter, or read about it third- or fourth-hand through the traditional press?
If you’re a company promoting a concept or brand, it can help build consumer trust. Twitter can even be used at a time of crisis and can aid in disaster planning and aid response.
According to Nielsen, Twitter usage grew by 343% year-on-year and was the fastest growing social networking site of the year. It has also greatly expanded outside their youthful audience to find a place in older visitors’ professional lives.
Here in Silicon Valley, it’s practically unheard of that anyone working in web to not have a social networking presence. A great advocate of social networking, Jeremiah Owyang, (@jowyang) has close to 20,000 Twitter followers. People listen to what he says with great interest. If he suggests a ‘twitter meetup’, swarms attend - which is a great networking event and beneficial to all especially in these economic times.
To think of Twitter in its most basic terms and not think about the social networking aspects or it’s future potential is extremely short-sighted of The Mail. It’s not like they’re an active user of Twitter - oh, yeah, sorry, they are @mailonline.
I’d much rather know Will Carling (@willcarling) is trying to make his children eat veg, Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) is off to Codfish Island or Jonathan Ross (@wossy) wants Dizzee Rascal to be the new Dr Who, than the depressing rants of The Mail. I’m not saying Twitter is the b-all and end-all, but it a very useful tool nonetheless which is still in its infancy, with massive potential.
(Credit picture: Daily Mail Headlineinator)
Categories : Communication, Personal, Things to do, Web
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