4 ms·

I just can't get bullish about Twitter for the long haul with mainstream adoption. I know I might get flamed for this, but I'm trying to give some observations

I just can't get bullish about Twitter for the long haul with mainstream adoption. I know I might get flamed for this, but I'm trying to give some observations: * Tech inclined, but non-industry friends just don't see the value of Twitter. The word pointless is used almost every time. * Those that try it leave very fast. That's where the 10 tweets per person seems to be about right. * The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad. * I asked a room filled with 30 college seniors who come from good backgrounds / fairly smart / business students etc if they used Twitter. One person tried it and one person uses it for their job, not personally. I'm not saying Twitter is horrible or Twitter is going to die. I just don't see it being the huge monstrosity of a multi multi billion dollar company a lot of people expect it to be. That's okay. I'd rather see it stick around for those that do value it, rather than die because it tried to become something it just can't be.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
My impression is that Facebook stole a lot of the potential Twitter thunder. For communicating among your Facebook friends, Facebook status updates are at least as good as Twitter, maybe better. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, more every day; far fewer are also using Twitter. IMHO Twitter is a tool for following interesting people who aren't close enough to you to be your friend in something like Facebook. But what makes someone interesting on Twitter? Being a celebrity is not it: Most celebrities aren't famous for generating Twitter-type content. They're famous for acting or sprinting or golf or good looks, none of which translates well to Twitter. Being an important company is not it, either, unless you enjoy reading press releases or are a serious power user. The people I follow are hackers, writers, artists, and good linkers. People who are otherwise hard to follow via mass media, but are not close enough to be personal friends. It doesn't surprise me that the audience for that is large but not gargantuan, just as it doesn't surprise me to know that the market for novels is an order of magnitude smaller than the market for sitcoms. It also doesn't surprise me that the Twitter audience skews older. Isn't catering to kids what the rest of the media is for?
- jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
  I used the college kids example not as a "twitter is meant for younger people" example. It's the fact that college campuses are usually good predictors of technologies and apps that are gaining mainstream popularity. Ironically Facebook is growing heavily in the older segment, which is making the "Facebook stealing twitters thunder" even more important. Another overlooked demographic of the twitter userbase is the urban segment. A ton of rappers use the service, hence bringing more fans. Go look at most of the hashtag trends on search.twitter ie- #whyursingle. Almost all of the responses are from an urban/black audience. I think there's some X Factor there, as it could turn twitter into something more mainstream. I don't know.
  - antauth 17y ago
    I prefer the simplicity of Twitter: I don't want pictures, I don't want video, I just want the info. (The only reason I'm on Facebook is because I am a college student and my peers are all on there.) I also feel that Twitter better facilitates useful information exchanges which is harder with the clutter of Facebook. As far as the urban audience, I think one of things that makes Twitter a little closer to MySpace is that ability to customize your background. I think that might be a part of it, but certainly not all of it.
  - whopa 17y ago
    Rapper mentions and urban demographics didn't save the T-Mobile Sidekick. I don't think it's a meaningful indicator of larger things.
    - jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
      it certainly helped it spread and gain adoption.
      - whopa 17y ago
        To a point. It never hit the mainstream in a big way.
  - 17y ago
potatolicious 17y ago
The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from local merchants/organizations. I follow some restaurants in my city, and it is useful for keeping tabs on specials and other happenings around me, but it's almost entirely useless for personal communication - Facebook does it better with more existing adoption.
- jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
  Facebook and local advertising is going to fuck shit up big time. Once local merchants know they can target: women 24-32 who are single like wine and live within 10 miles of your town. Yeah, that's going to be big. I agree though, Twitter has an interesting case for local merchants.
- njharman 17y ago
  Breaking news/news photos (twitpic) depends on Twitter. Also Twitter really facilitates adhoc, transient groups of "friends" such as SXSW, ACL, conference attendees or elections via hash tags.
- eplanit 17y ago
  "The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from local merchants/organizations." Where "announcements" == advertisements. Yes, that's the apparent and generally agreed (long-term) usefulness of Twitter.
  - kscaldef 17y ago
    It might be advertising, but it's advertising where: 1) I opt-in, and can opt-out 2) I pick exactly who I want to get advertising from 3) The "advertiser" can get feedback on how many people are following them, how many new, how many lost, and potentially adjust. Personally, I'm pretty happy that I can follow my favorite restaurants and they tell me what today's specials are, or I can follow my neighborhood bar and they tell me when they change a keg. If that's the future of advertising, I'm happy to have it.
    - 17y ago
zaidf 17y ago
I'm not sure where I stand on Twitter. But to add another datapoint, a speaker at our school(unc chapel hill) asked how many people are on Twitter and about half the room raised their hand. I know for a fact the j-school and b-school are really pushing Twitter use to their students.
- alien_acorn 17y ago
  What are "j-school and b-school"?
  - starkfist 17y ago
    journalism and business school
kscaldef 17y ago
"The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad" I'd be curious to know the stats on Facebook. I'd guesstimate that only about 20% of my FB friends post on a regular basis. Lots of people are on FB but not terribly engaged.
- jordanmessina 17y ago
  A ton are terribly engaged at looking at others profile pictures and playing farmville. That's probably all the value about 80% of facebook users get...including myself
webwright 17y ago
Yeah, I think Twitter's lost the communication / social network game. They are a broadcast medium. They are microblogging. It's not about relationships, it's about audiences. One other thought-- I was one of those <10 tweets users for a while. You keep building an audience and keep seeing friends following you, eventually you start tweeting (or at least I did). So unlike a lot of abandoned user accounts with other services, I think abandoned Twitter accounts might "wake up" down the road.
- shermans 17y ago
  It doesn't have to be about relationships - I have Facebook for that. An audience can be useful and a lot of fun. I get thoughtful responses to questions I posit and random insights that have affected my thinking. There's some off the wall stuff and that can be fun too. I think Twitter has a perceived high barrier to entry. If you don't have any friends on it, why would you tweet to yourself? And if you don't tweet, why would anyone follow you? It's all about who you follow, IMHO.

mechanical_fish 17y ago

My impression is that Facebook stole a lot of the potential Twitter thunder. For communicating among your Facebook friends, Facebook status updates are at least as good as Twitter, maybe better. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, more every day; far fewer are also using Twitter. IMHO Twitter is a tool for following interesting people who aren't close enough to you to be your friend in something like Facebook. But what makes someone interesting on Twitter? Being a celebrity is not it: Most celebrities aren't famous for generating Twitter-type content. They're famous for acting or sprinting or golf or good looks, none of which translates well to Twitter. Being an important company is not it, either, unless you enjoy reading press releases or are a serious power user. The people I follow are hackers, writers, artists, and good linkers. People who are otherwise hard to follow via mass media, but are not close enough to be personal friends. It doesn't surprise me that the audience for that is large but not gargantuan, just as it doesn't surprise me to know that the market for novels is an order of magnitude smaller than the market for sitcoms. It also doesn't surprise me that the Twitter audience skews older. Isn't catering to kids what the rest of the media is for?

jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
I used the college kids example not as a "twitter is meant for younger people" example. It's the fact that college campuses are usually good predictors of technologies and apps that are gaining mainstream popularity. Ironically Facebook is growing heavily in the older segment, which is making the "Facebook stealing twitters thunder" even more important. Another overlooked demographic of the twitter userbase is the urban segment. A ton of rappers use the service, hence bringing more fans. Go look at most of the hashtag trends on search.twitter ie- #whyursingle. Almost all of the responses are from an urban/black audience. I think there's some X Factor there, as it could turn twitter into something more mainstream. I don't know.
- antauth 17y ago
  I prefer the simplicity of Twitter: I don't want pictures, I don't want video, I just want the info. (The only reason I'm on Facebook is because I am a college student and my peers are all on there.) I also feel that Twitter better facilitates useful information exchanges which is harder with the clutter of Facebook. As far as the urban audience, I think one of things that makes Twitter a little closer to MySpace is that ability to customize your background. I think that might be a part of it, but certainly not all of it.
- whopa 17y ago
  Rapper mentions and urban demographics didn't save the T-Mobile Sidekick. I don't think it's a meaningful indicator of larger things.
  - jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
    it certainly helped it spread and gain adoption.
    - whopa 17y ago
      To a point. It never hit the mainstream in a big way.
- 17y ago

potatolicious 17y ago

The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from local merchants/organizations. I follow some restaurants in my city, and it is useful for keeping tabs on specials and other happenings around me, but it's almost entirely useless for personal communication - Facebook does it better with more existing adoption.

jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
Facebook and local advertising is going to fuck shit up big time. Once local merchants know they can target: women 24-32 who are single like wine and live within 10 miles of your town. Yeah, that's going to be big. I agree though, Twitter has an interesting case for local merchants.
njharman 17y ago
Breaking news/news photos (twitpic) depends on Twitter. Also Twitter really facilitates adhoc, transient groups of "friends" such as SXSW, ACL, conference attendees or elections via hash tags.
eplanit 17y ago
"The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from local merchants/organizations." Where "announcements" == advertisements. Yes, that's the apparent and generally agreed (long-term) usefulness of Twitter.
- kscaldef 17y ago
  It might be advertising, but it's advertising where: 1) I opt-in, and can opt-out 2) I pick exactly who I want to get advertising from 3) The "advertiser" can get feedback on how many people are following them, how many new, how many lost, and potentially adjust. Personally, I'm pretty happy that I can follow my favorite restaurants and they tell me what today's specials are, or I can follow my neighborhood bar and they tell me when they change a keg. If that's the future of advertising, I'm happy to have it.
  - 17y ago

zaidf 17y ago

I'm not sure where I stand on Twitter. But to add another datapoint, a speaker at our school(unc chapel hill) asked how many people are on Twitter and about half the room raised their hand. I know for a fact the j-school and b-school are really pushing Twitter use to their students.

alien_acorn 17y ago
What are "j-school and b-school"?
- starkfist 17y ago
  journalism and business school

kscaldef 17y ago

"The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad" I'd be curious to know the stats on Facebook. I'd guesstimate that only about 20% of my FB friends post on a regular basis. Lots of people are on FB but not terribly engaged.

jordanmessina 17y ago
A ton are terribly engaged at looking at others profile pictures and playing farmville. That's probably all the value about 80% of facebook users get...including myself

webwright 17y ago

Yeah, I think Twitter's lost the communication / social network game. They are a broadcast medium. They are microblogging. It's not about relationships, it's about audiences. One other thought-- I was one of those <10 tweets users for a while. You keep building an audience and keep seeing friends following you, eventually you start tweeting (or at least I did). So unlike a lot of abandoned user accounts with other services, I think abandoned Twitter accounts might "wake up" down the road.

shermans 17y ago
It doesn't have to be about relationships - I have Facebook for that. An audience can be useful and a lot of fun. I get thoughtful responses to questions I posit and random insights that have affected my thinking. There's some off the wall stuff and that can be fun too. I think Twitter has a perceived high barrier to entry. If you don't have any friends on it, why would you tweet to yourself? And if you don't tweet, why would anyone follow you? It's all about who you follow, IMHO.