Twitter has a marketing issue
Over the last year I’ve been tinkering in the Web 2.0 space and it seems to me that there is still a big gap between those who are understanding and using the technologies and those that don’t. I started this blog to help discuss a lot of the tools and I think I’ve fallen into one of the classic blunders - no, not starting a land war in Asia, but it’s not about the tools - it’s about the information (and you’d think that working for a company “where information lives”, that I would have realized this sooner).
A quick reflection - I remember studying “global warming” back in high school. It’s a rather complex issue and when you try and discuss it, one thing that tends to muddy the discussion is that “warming” was a bad choice of words, since locally, we are seeing disturbances in climates which are creating greater variations - sometimes warmer, sometimes colder, but basically causing disturbances. More recently, I’ve heard the term “global climate change”, which makes it easier to discuss. [Note: A blog post by Seth Godin which Dave sent on Twitter got me thinking for this post.]
Twitter - I wrote about the tool, but it’s taken me a while to really understand what’s going on there. I don’t think that “micro-blogging” means much to most people, seeing that post people don’t blog themselves. Technically it’s 140 characters of text - but why does that matter? It’s about streams of information. When you tap into a group on Twitter, it’s kind of like a party line. There are conversations going on and you can just listen, or join in - commenting on what’s going on or inserting your own information. Many of the people on Twitter are bloggers. For some, a conversation on Twitter will help spark the idea or help form what becomes a blog post. After the blog is posted, comments on the blog and responses on Twitter continue the dialogue. 
So, what’s the big deal? I’ve found that once I found the right people to follow and had enough people following me, that I am picking up extra information with added insight that I don’t get just through RSS. Twitter is not for everyone, but there are some great thought leaders out there and you can get insight into what they are thinking about and even join the dialogue if you’d like. Most bloggers who are on Twitter will have a widget on their website pointing you to Twitter (see mine on the right). If you’re not ready to join Twitter (you can just be a lurker), you can watch Twitter feeds on the website or via RSS. Twitter also has a good search at http://search.twitter.com and you can create an RSS feed for any search (I use it to see if anyone is talking about a technology that I work on). A final note on the tool - there are dozens of interfaces to interact with Twitter, so whatever browser, computer type or mobile platform, there’s probably a tool that works for you (of course, the huge amount of options will likely scare a bunch of people away - except for the tech crowd).
We’re still very much in the early adoption phase of Twitter. For me, I went through a 6 month progression where first Twitter was a tool to update my status on Facebook, then a place where you could have some communal discussion with people you know, and recently to gaining value through following some bright and influential people and also finding industry dialogue where I can be part of a larger dialogue. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t think Twitter is for everyone, but I’ve heard everyone from cyclists to wine aficionados getting introduced to Twitter because of the information that can be found there and nowhere else. I remember seeing the first web browser in 1994; the “aha! moment” was a lot quicker for the internet than it was for Twitter (just like Seth Godin’s article mentioned earlier, gravity is easier to explain than evolution). I think it’s more like cell phones - we all knew about car phones in the 80s, but the tipping point for cell phones didn’t occur until 1997 and for a large part of the population, it’s more than just being able to make an emergency phone call. Then again, there are people that still don’t use a cell phone much and would rather not deal with all this new-fangled technology. Basically - the conversations are past forming and into storming - what are you doing (or caring about, or interested in)?
