Is Twitter a big deal?
Posted in Commentary on April 17, 2009
Perhaps you’ve heard about the Battle of the Tweeters that’s been heating up this week and finally came to a head today?
History was made today!
The first Twitter user to exceed one million followers is actor Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). He was in a tight race with CNN (@cnnbrk) and ultimately, the celebrity pulled it off.
You’ve heard about the first man on the moon. And perhaps you’ve heard the audio tape or watched the video of that historical moment.
If you’re able to watch Oprah (@Oprah) today, you’ll see the world’s first tweeter with one million followers.
Check out what’s being said on Twitter Search about Ashton and his competition with CNN.
Who cares?
Part of me likes the fact that Twitter really seems to be taking over mainstream media. There aren’t many who haven’t talked about it, reported on it or used it.
Here’s what some of my Twitter colleagues had to say:
In our Social Media Club of Salt Lake City luncheon seminar yesterday the presenter, Jay Shaffer of Infopia, commented that in a recent conference with Guy Kawasaki all everyone wanted to talk about was Twitter. It’s certainly all the rage.
But do non-media, non-content-producers really care about Twitter?
If they don’t, they should.
The Case for Twitter
The future of communication is mobile. The mobile phone will be an individual’s hub for all their information — their calendar, their contacts, their entertainment.
Twitter’s SMS (text message) platform makes it perfect for the mobile phone format.
Twitter’s ability to collectively report on crisis situations and to catalog large conversations from across the globe make it a powerhouse to be reckoned with.
Companies, organizations and individuals that want to participate in modern communication will be forced to use Twitter.
To remain absent in the conversation would be foolish.
Traditional, older methods of communication will not be replaced by Twitter any more than radio was replaced by television.
But like it or not, in 140 characters or less, Twitter has forever changed the way in which we communicate.
I think that twitter is very much apart of social media today. I would say that the biggest social media sites are Facebook, Google +, Twitter, and linkedIn. It is so interesting to see how twitter has shaped itself the past little. For myself I have really liked how twitter has been a great source of news for me. Not just your regular news source either, but news you care about. Its great how you can get "news" from whomever you want you just need to follow them or the orginzation. It has solidified that it has its own space that is important and can work by itself. It is different enough and vital enough to stick around.
I personally don’t see the point of twitter its only good for sports announcements if its not already available. I mean facebook and myspace already have status updates why does the internet need another updater?
Yes,
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. The service is free to use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur phone service provider fees.