2010: The beginning of the end for Twitter?

by James on February 15, 2010

Although it’s still early on in 2010 it’s shaping up to be an interesting year in social media. I think one of the most dramatic changes we’ll see by the end of the year will be the passing into irrelevance of Twitter.

What made Twitter such a success was the large role it played in introducing so many to the “real-time web”. I think it’s downfall will be it’s inability, or unwillingness, at least up until now, to adapt to the new culture that it helped create. Most of what made Twitter so great didn’t come from Twitter at all, but from third party developers that built tools to make Twitter shine. Whether it was TweetDeck or Tweetie, Twitpic or yFrog, The only definitive move Twitter really made in all of this was to make bit.ly it’s default url shortener.

Here are a few reasons (in no particular order) I think we’ll see Twitter go the way of MySpace or Friendster by the end of 2010.

  1. Scaling issues. Twitter has had more than enough time and raised more than enough money that it should have been able to resolve its scalability issues but it still seems like the fail whale will never go away. That doesn’t give me a great deal of faith in where that money is going to or how it’s being spent.
  2. Noise. While MySpace has spent the past couple of years hemorrhaging users, many of them seem to be landing at Twitter and it has begun to seriously affect the discourse going on there. For a while there wasn’t a better place on the web to follow some of the top minds in a chosen industry. Now you’re lucky if you can find someone not talking about Miley Cyrus or Lady GaGa. As of this writing here are the top ten trending topics on Twitter: Doug Fieger, #teamlebron, #makesmesomad (1, 2 and 3), Pairs Figure Skating, #AS10, 108 713, All-Star game, Valentiness (this topic seems to actually be trending thanks to only one person, awesome), Bilodeau, Old Spice Commercial. Not one topic of substance on that entire list, at least in my opinion. I used to be able to go on Twitter and find out actual substantive news or interesting topics of information. Trending topics like this shows that the people that helped give Twitter value as a source of knowledge and information have either been completely overrun by the MySpace refugees or have already begun abandoning ship.
  3. Corporate noise a.k.a. spamming. Along with the two other reasons I mentioned above, this will be a huge reason I think Twitter won’t be worth the proverbial paper it’s printed on at the end of 2010. Just as corporations are beginning to map out their social media strategy, many of them have put most, if not all, of their eggs in two baskets. Facebook and Twitter. We live in different times and the old media arc is no longer relevant, it’s iterating at a much faster rate. With Twitter, corporations are boarding ship on one side, while the people they thought they would be marketing to are abandoning ship on the other side. This will ratchet up the noise of marketing pitches on Twitter as companies struggle to realize why their ROI is SOL.
  4. The last reason is simple. Google Buzz. Every single person I followed and found value in their posts at Twitter are already using Google Buzz. Do I think Buzz will alone be the straw that broke Twitter’s back? Not at all, but I think Buzz will give other companies the confidence to take what Twitter did and do it better. Google has already proven that they can launch a product that, at conception, is better than Twitter is as an adolescent.

It’ll be interesting to see how all of this plays out but my money is on the Twitter bird going down into a coalmine and not making it back alive in 2011.

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    Why Tiger Woods was Wrong in His Apology

    by James on December 2, 2009

    Tiger-Woods-and-Elin-NordUnless you’ve been literally living under a rock since last Friday you know all about Tiger and his “sins” and “transgressions”.

    Today Tiger posted an apology on his website. While the apology to his family seemed sincere, there was definitely a tone that I found to be a bit spiteful.

    Obviously these are extremely trying times for Tiger and his family, but his anger seems to be misplaced. While he seems to genuinely feel regret for the obvious pain he’s caused his family, his anger seems misplaced.

    Some people are of the opinion that since this has nothing to do with golf that Tiger owes neither his fans nor the media any explanation. I’m sorry but it doesn’t work like that. Tiger’s a big boy, he needs to learn that his actions have consequences. Not only with his family but, when you are a public figure, with the public as well.

    We all cooed as we watched Tiger’s appearance on the Tonight Show when he was only two years old. We all marveled with Tiger as we watched him, exactly 20 years later, become the youngest player and the first minority player to win The Masters. We mourned with Tiger at the passing of his Father. The man who had dedicated his life into making Tiger who Tiger is. The man we saw Tiger hug after nearly every victory. Now, 12 years after his first Masters win and 14 majors later, we marvel with Tiger as he became the first athlete in history to earn more than $1 billion. Where does he think that money came from?

    Sure much of it has to do with the fact that he may well turn out to be the greatest golfer that ever lived. And if Tiger only played golf and never accepted all of those tens of millions in dollars in endorsements I may very well be agreeing with the people who are saying we should keep our noses out of it. But that’s not what happened. Golf isn’t what pays the bills in the Woods’ household. Tiger makes way more money in endorsements than he does playing golf. Those endorsements are paid for by people’s hopes and dreams. Millions of people are vested in Tiger’s success, if not monetarily by buying the products he endorsed, then emotionally buy buying into the image he was selling.

    When you are a public figure and you so publicly implode (like on your neighbor’s lawn at 2:30 in the morning), then yes Tiger, you do owe us an explanation.

    Click after the jump to take a closer look at Tiger’s apology.
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      What Not to Do if You’re the CEO of a Company Trying to Generate Buzz with Social Media

      by James on December 1, 2009

      deadcellzones_site_is_downAlmost a month ago I wrote a post about DeadCellZones.com getting it’s server crushed by receiving a link from LifeHacker.

      As of today the site is still down. I simultaneously received a comment on my blog and on Twitter from the CEO of DeadCellZones.com telling me that in fact Dead Cell Zones is not down for the count but would be resurrecting in a matter of days. Both comments explicitly asked me if I wanted to check out a preview of the new site.

      Below is the very brief and very bizarre email exchange between me and Jeff Cohn, CEO of DeadCellZones.com:

      Me: Hi Jeff, I saw your comment on my blog. I would definitely be interested in taking a look at what you guys have coming out.

      Jeff: How could we benefit from you seeing it? What is your interest in the space and how could you help / or hurt us?

      Me: Hmm, well you asked me if I wanted to see it. I answered you. The way it normally works if I see something I like I share it. I usually don’t waste my time writing about things just because I don’t like them. Your story was interesting because I was able to use it as a lesson on how to be prepared for traffic. If you are comfortable with taking a look at the preview that’s fine, if you’re not that’s also fine. I’m not out to hurt anyone. I’m also not going to promise anything just to see it.

      Me: On second thought I’m not really interested. Good luck with the launch.

      Jeff: If you are willing to write a corrective post if you like what you see I am happy to send you some screen shot maps of the upper east coast.

      Screenshots? I’m supposed to write a corrective post about a site that, as of now, is still down based on screenshots?

      Me: No thanks. There’s nothing to correct. When I wrote the post the site was dead. It still is. Frankly your approach is a bit offsetting, I’m actually writing a post about that now. Again, good luck with the new site.

      Jeff: Why didn’t you send an email asking why we shut it down? That is good reporting.

      Me: I knew why you shut it down. The original image you displayed on your site after the crash said as much. You got linked from a high trafficked site (LifeHacker I think) and you weren’t prepared for the influx of people. It seemed pretty straight forward to me.

      Jeff: Not exactly. Have you ever published a map with lots of data?

      At that point I just didn’t know what else to say so I just stopped writing back. I was shocked that someone trying to seemingly generate buzz for their site that’s about to re-launch would be so rude. Don’t ask me to preview something and then ask what I can promise you or do for you in order to actually see the preview. It’s tactless.

      So, if you’re the CEO of a company try not to engage someone and then be defensive and confrontational when they try and connect with you. By the way, I’ve also posted the original image you had posted on your site after it crashed. Why would I send an email asking you about something you’ve already told the world? Of course you’ve since changed your image, but the message is still the same.

      There’s my take on the re-launch. Hope that helps Jeff.

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        Should you sell your tweets?

        by James on November 27, 2009

        sponsored_tweetsOne of the many hot topics surrounding Twitter lately is the discussion on whether or not selling your tweets as ad space on Twitter is a good idea or a bad one.

        Sites like Ad.ly and Sponsored Tweets offer people the opportunity to post ads in their Twitter stream. Usually the more followers you have, the more you can charge for ads, the fact that the number of followers by itself is an extremely poor indicator of influence doesn’t seem to matter much right now to the people buying and selling tweets. You can set your rate at whatever you’d like and if the advertiser thinks it’s a good bang for their buck, so far at least, they’ve been eager to pay some pretty audacious prices for a single tweet on the more popular streams.

        Some Twitter users have made upwards of $3,000 a week using one or both of the services I mentioned before. Obviously this is a pretty enticing figure considering we’re only talking about a few tweets at the most. I can’t say that if I had the leverage to make that kind of scratch off of a couple of tweets that I would definitely turn it down. Unfortunately I’m a pretty late adopter to the Twitter scene so I don’t have nearly enough followers for that to be an issue for me. Which is also great for me because, for now at least, it takes the decision on whether or not to sell ads out of my hands.

        What do I mean by that? Well, since I’m still in the process of building up my Twitter network and engaging the people I’m already following the amount of revenue I could generate with ads is insignificant enough that it wouldn’t be worth me potentially offending and losing people that have chosen to follow me.

        That being said, that’s a decision that everyone has to make for themselves. Does the potential financial gain outweigh the potential loss of followers or loss of credibility with your followers?

        I don’t think there’s a clearly defined answer to this question, although I do believe that in-tweet advertising is not going away and will only continue to grow as people acclimate to it and it becomes less of a hot-button issue.

        While there are no clearly defined boundaries for tweet selling, I can think of a few good rules of thumb that should be adhered to.

        1. More than any other form of advertising, selling tweets has the potential to seriously damage your personal reputation so you better be damn sure that the product you’re hawking is something that you actually believe in, have experience with or at least researched heavily, otherwise people are going to be PISSED when they get a hunk of crap in the mail that they bought based on your personal recommendation.
        2. If you’re not going to be making some pretty serious, legitimate cash by selling your tweets, it’s probably not worth the risk. Serving up ads in your tweets could not only cost you people who are already following you, but it could seriously effect people’s decisions on whether or not to follow you in the future. If you’re only making a few bucks, why not just work on connecting with your followers and leave the ad considerations until you’ve got a much larger, more stable group of followers.
        3. If you’re a corporation or organization, you should never sell your tweets. Your goal is to engage your clients and build trust with them. Selling ads will pretty much accomplish the exact opposite of that.
        4. No matter who you are, do not tweet more than one ad a day.
        5. If you do decide to sell ads ONLY sell ads that are relevant to the rest of your posts. If you’re a tech/gadget guy and all of the sudden I see an ad for Victoria’s Secret in your stream that’s more than likely going to get you an unfollow.

        One of the reasons this is such a sensitive issue is the nature of the medium. If you sell ads on your blog, it’s understood that you are selling inventory and filling it with pretty much anything you can. When you sell ads on Twitter the implication is that you are personally recommending this product to your followers and it just so happens you got paid for it.

        At some point everyone on Twitter will make the decision (or not make a decision at all) on whether or not to sell their tweets. Each person needs to seriously weigh the pros and cons. Think about your audience and how they will react to ads in your stream? Are you willing to risk losing some of your followers for the sake of a few bucks? Chances are, if you follow the advice I’ve already given, and actually wait until you are in a position to charge some serious cash for selling your tweets you will already be able to answer these questions because you’ve already connected enough with your base to understand what the expect from you.

        It seems as if monetizing tweets is part of the natural evolution of Twitter, what you have to decide is whether or not you’re willing to follow people who are trying to hawk their #ads to you, or are you going to chain yourself to the base of the Twitter tree and roll around in patchouli with the other “Twitterhuggers”. To be honest, I haven’t made up my mind which group I’m going to fall into for now. Have you?

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          Brizzly: What Twitter would be with a Facelift and on some Steroids

          by James on November 20, 2009

          brizzlyFor the past year or so I’ve been making a concerted effort to move everything I do into the cloud. I love knowing that I’m not tied down to one machine. It’s very freeing to know that I can log on from any computer in the world and have access to virtually everything I need.

          The more I use Twitter, the more I’ve been searching for the perfect web app to handle my Twitter needs. A few days ago I wrote about Seesmic’s Twitter Web App, which has pretty much become my default app of choice. But as I mentioned, Seesmic is still missing some basic functionality that I’d like to see added and until I find an app that can handle everything I need I’m always going to be on the lookout for new innovations.

          The other day I got an invite to another Twitter web app called brizzly and I have to say, wow. Not only is the design drop-dead gorgeous, it’s loaded with features. It’s by far the most powerful Twitter web app I’ve seen. Not only does it have many of the features some of the more robust desktop clients have, it even has some unique features that are pretty cool too.

          Brizzly not only supports multiple accounts it has facebook integration as well, both of which are big pluses in my book.

          Screencaps and more details after the jump.
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            Tweckling? You’ve got to be twucking twidding me

            by James on November 19, 2009

            presentingJennifer Preston of the New York Times posted a tweet about “tweckling” with a link to this article in The Chronicle for Higher Education. The article is about tweckling.

            I would imagine your first two reactions to that last sentence are, “what the eff is tweckling?” and, “why the eff should I care?”. Well, to answer your first question, tweckling is the act of using Twitter to heckle speakers at conferences. The answer to your second question is, you shouldn’t, at all.

            Now I don’t pretend to understand the world of academia or their high-falutin’ keynote speaking ways but I am shocked that any of them would actually give a crap about what some people in the audience would have to say about them on Twitter. But apparently they take this stuff pretty seriously.

            One reaction was, “It appears that the nasty, vicious, backstabbing academic culture has reached a new low with the pack mentality of tweeters who vilify a speaker contemporaneously. Have intolerance and incivility reached the point where humiliating and attacking a speaker who does not ‘respect’ their time and expectations has become a new sport? I guess common decency and polite behavior fall to the wayside in the presence of the towering intellect of the elite and sarcastic critics who know it all.”

            Well if the keynote speaker sounded like half as much of a douchebag as that I can’t say I blame the audience for tweckling them. God, I can’t even write the word “tweckling” without wanting to punch myself in the face.

            At least someone seems to have some common sense on the subject, “The main impact of the Twitter backchannel will be an improvement over time in the quality of the presentations at conferences like this. I’ve experienced this several times. The Twitterverse is highly complimentary when such compliments are earned, and they are critical when the criticism is earned. How exactly is that a bad thing?”

            Seriously, if people are making fun of you and talking about how bad your keynote is on Twitter, maybe it has a lot more to do with your keynote sucking and you being a douchebag than with “the electronic ‘Pack’ formed and attacked. Cowardly, cruel, Tweeters are hastening our rapidly declining social and moral standards and turning us into hateful boors.” (seriously someone said that).

            And to the dolt that responded with this, “I have attended this conference in the past, and have even presented there (in a session, not as keynote). I wonder how hard it will be for the conference committee to get keynote presenters in the future. I wonder if people will think twice before submitting a presentation proposal – I know I will.”

            You can’t even get a keynote in the first place! Pfft, a session? I could present at a session and I’m an idiot. If “tweckling” or throwing tomatoes or whatever is effective in making people think twice before going up and giving the same old rote keynote with no new information and expecting people to sit there like quiet little puppets until it’s over then so be it. If your skin is so soft and your foundation so weak that you’re actually bothered by what people are tweeting about your keynote, then it’s likely you’re not coming up with any groundbreaking ideas anyway so I doubt we’re missing much. Good riddance.

            You know who doesn’t get “tweckled”? People who connect with their audience. Bottom line. If you’re giving a keynote and you can’t connect with your audience then the fact that they’re talking about you on twitter should be the least of your worries.

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