I’ve been a user of Twitter for some time now and I’ve come to an unfortunate conclusion. Unless you are Britney Spears Twitter is mostly useless.
Twitter is currently the most popular of a series of micro-blogging and social networking services. What you get when you sign up for your free account is the ability to send and receive short (140 character long) messages to and from your list of “friends”. You can “follow” other people, meaning you will receive any messages they post. In essence it is a web version of SMS text messaging on your cell phone (and in fact can direct messages to cell phones).
Twitter first gained a lot of popularity amongst tech-heads and has since gotten a lot of press from big name tech journalists who have touted its use. Most of these tech journalists have used the service as a secondary method of drumming up interest in their stories. Interestingly the service has seen a shift in interest to more mainstream media and even many big name celebrities from the initial technorati as it has grown. Yes even Britney Spears has a Twitter account. Many big name corporations like Comcast and Carls, Jr. are exploring the use of the Twitterverse as an alternative method of communicating with their customers. Twitter is now so mainstream it is being mentioned on the evening news and as I write this very sentence Jon Stewart just mentioned “tweeting” on the Daily Show. Big name Twitterers even compare their stats to see who has the most followers, a sort of nerdy pissing contest.
Those who think they are getting closer to celebrity Twitterer need to realize that, like television, it is a one way street, a cheap communication channel for them to reach (advertise) to their fans. Just don’t expect much. Most of the big name Twitter users simply aren’t listening to your tweets. Unless you have a number of friends who use the service you are likely writing short messages into a black hole.
For most people there isn’t much of a reason for anyone else to read your tweets unless you are a content producer of some kind. Face it, nobody but close family is interested in what you just ate or that you are at home petting your dog. You would be better served by sending a text message on your phone to your friends or use a service like Facebook instead (which most of your friends probably are using anyway).
Currently there is a deluge of good blogging and social networking services. Twitter, like Facebook, has discovered that the two often go hand in hand. This is probably part of the reason why Facebook is currently interested in purchasing Twitter. The problem with so many choices right now is that people are likely to pick one and stick with it unless a majority of their friends leave. It is simply too much effort for most people to use more than one service at a time. This is why you saw a mass exodus of Livejournal to Friendster to MySpace to Facebook and Twitter. But Twitter is (currently) too limited in its capabilities when compared to Facebook. Twitter is like Facebook in that it has all the same features except the useful ones like hosting photos and videos, and creating and being part of groups. If sharing information is the point of social networks then Twitter is the stingiest of the bunch. Perhaps thats why celebrities and corporations like it so much.
I have strong doubts about the long term future of Twitter in its current form. Though it is still receiving rounds of venture capitol funding it hasn’t made a single dime making any money right now nor has it announced any business plans. I fear that once the venture capitolists realize there isn’t a business plan at all they will pull their money out. Twitter’s popularity will ultimately being its downfall as bandwidth and server costs will quickly swallow their remaining funds.
UPDATE: This cartoon perfectly sums up my feelings about Twitter.
-Hollywood
