Comments on: Twitter's Tipping Point

By: Neela

Neela — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:58:47 +0000

Hi Om,
If the young generation gets caught on twitter, it will create tipping point. To get them hooked, twitter need to have some entertainment or something ( I don’t know). But, hey that will be interesting. I just updated blog on twitter. Thanks for the thought though.

By: adamjackson

adamjackson — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:33:48 +0000

You make some excellent points but the book isn’t a book about success stories per se’ it’s going to be a style guide just like a style guide that you’d read in school or a field guide you take with you when you go camping.

There are no rules to Twitter and we respect and understand that but I’ve send out over 50 thousand tweets across all of my Twitter accounts and I’ve learned a thing or two about short hand blogging and the best way to get the job done using 140 character messages.

By: adamjackson

adamjackson — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:31:45 +0000

You did a write-up when my co-author wrote the history of twitter http://gigaom.com/2009/02/01/a-brief-history-of-twitter/

You’re on my list for receiving a copy when it prints and I hope you take the time to read it.

By: adamjackson

adamjackson — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:30:37 +0000

Great suggestion! You’re not the first to recommend a book that’s tweeted out but, like Twitter, there’s no business model :)

By: Gupta

Gupta — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:00:22 +0000

Folks,

I saw this event that looked interesting. So thought of sharing – FREE TweetUp with Twitter VP Ops, Santosh Jayaram and LinkedIn Co-founder, Allen Blue on Wednesday May 6 @ 6PM in Santa Clara.
Hosted by TiEcon 2009.
Details: http://tiecontweetup.eventbrite.com/

By: Observer

Observer — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:36:48 +0000

@matt schulte – some people welcoming thinly disguised ads is not how ad supported media makes its money. At the end of the day Twitter has to be a viable business as well. Ad supported media works by throwing up unsolicited ads (more targeted the better) that are separate and distinct from the basic information user is looking for. Imagine a Google where only ads from those whom you preselect are displayed. That won’t be the Google we know. Problem with people subscribing to twitter ad feeds or feeds of commercial entities is that its not a good user experience in the long run. There are existing ways of communicating such info – such as e-mail and SMS alerts. Of course Twitter providing a free SMS platform is good for the advertiser, but how good is it for Twitter. Overall, all this hype doesn’t seem sustainable at all. I see parallels between facebook and twitter in that in both cases users would love to use them as long as unsolicited monetization mechanisms dont come in. In that sense both are problematic. Google does a masterful job of catching the user when he is looking for information from a broad source (the web) and puts up targeted unsolicited ads that also are valuable for both the user and advertiser.

By: Robin Majumdar

Robin Majumdar — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:44:20 +0000

- those exploiting T as a viral marketing tools, be it for direct profit (i.e. spitters drawing traffic to e-commerce sites)

- those using T as a branding & comm tool to increase brand awareness…

- Twitter itself, and their key VC / angel financiers, who now have a huge dataset to work with… wait ’til they start mining that data and pull a contextual advertising coup à la Google Adsense / Doubleclick / FB Beacon.

By: rob

rob — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:04:36 +0000

A candidate for Kuwait’s National Assembly–yes, they do have an elected body with real power–is on Twitter.

By: matt schulte

matt schulte — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:05:06 +0000

I think part of the point is that some people welcome thinly disguised advertisements…like “hey, that class you wanted to sign up for that was full?…it has an opening in an hour, if you are interested.” The nice thing about Twitter is if you don’t want that companies thinly disguised ad? Don’t follow them. All media is subject to spam of one sort or another. I personally don’t get a bit of spam from twitter, because I choose to follow smart interesting people and organizations. And, Twitter is a platform in a way…companies like Stocktwits are building very valuable tools on top of that platform. To say that it’s old spam in a new can I think dismisses completely what a lot of people are actually using it for. I think it’s at a tipping point where many many people will sign up, see no value, and forget about it, and the media will look for the new newer thing. That doesn’t mean it won’t continue to have value for many others, and that the ideas inherent in it’s usage won’t continue to evolve.

By: Observer

Observer — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:40:17 +0000

All this invasion of twitter by businesses tells me that an implosion is going to follow the ‘tipping point’ – may be Om meant the ‘tipping point’ to be the falling over of an edifice without sound foundation :). Tweets will become thinly disguised advertisements. Once users get over the initial high, will start realizing that this all old spam in a new can. I do recommend people using twitter to ‘follow’ volcanoes and faults. But didn’t we have text and email alerts already?

By: matt schulte

matt schulte — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:27:05 +0000

Om:
I think actually quite lot of businesses are taking advantage of Twitter…a knitting shop here broadcasts when they have an unexpected opening in one of their classes…restaurants broadcasting their lunch specials…I recommend to all my current clients who could benefit from the real-time and targeted aspects of Twitter, to put it on their business cards, and make sure that every single person that comes to their shop gets one. Some have found that even if the customer didn’t have a twitter account, most have now heard of it, and once the shop owner explains that it’s a way to stay in touch (almost an easy loyalty program) some sign up right away. Next step…a laptop right in the shop they can sign up on. I am also working with the Mayor’s Office of Portland, Oregon, to develop low-cost, high-impact social media marketing strategies like the above for Portland’s very vibrant, DIY, small business community.

By: Jukka

Jukka — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:26:23 +0000

There is something to notion of commerce and Twitter. A few quite big companies are already experimenting with how to engage with their customers via Twitter.

http://www.retailerdaily.com/entry/13490/retailers-offer-deals-via-twitter/?utm_source=rd&utm_campaign=sitenav&utm_medium=headline

By: Observer

Observer — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:06:40 +0000

Its amazing how otherwise rational people get carried away by hype. We have had one dot com bubble already for Christ’s sake. In the salesman example, can Om selectively follow the salesman’s tweets on striped shirts? Ofcourse the salesman will be tweeting all kinds of shirts and there is a name for it – spam – and people hate it. If Om wants to get updates only about striped shirts – there is a mechanism for it already, and thats called email. Twitter has made it easy for people to mouthoff and people like it for the moment. They will certainly get tired of it at one point and soon. Yeah, the free publicity is envious and its because of twitter’s new value and ease of new creation – it has made everyone citizen journalists. That value will likely remain and may be copied by regular news media but its hard to see everyone will be reporting their every move for ever or everyone will start “following” their neighborhood apparel store for ever. Nonsense.

By: Adam Green

Adam Green — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:24:19 +0000

Creating a list of Twitter followers as a form of lead generation is a great sales technique, because it lets you communicate with them by tweeting in front of them, which is less intrusive than sending emails. I’ve written up a complete procedure for identifying Twitter users based on their profiles:
http://www.alertrank.com/mrgooglealerts/2009/04/09/finding-twitter-users-based-on-their-bio/

The basic principle is based on the Google search:
intext:”bio * [keyword]” site:twitter.com

It lets you identify people based on any set of keywords, which is much more meaningful than using Twitter search for the words they tweet. Their profile is the most relevant data they provide.

By: alan

alan — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:18:20 +0000

I am sure with sites like http://www.tweexchange.com launching late last week, the number of twitter accounts is sure to grow as well. Finally a place to buy and sell the twitter names you have. The land grab has begun

By: Seth

Seth — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:58:11 +0000

An interesting article at Twitter Backlash compliments this. It talks about how McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” relates to Twitter and can determine its future.

http://www.twitterbacklash.com